FROM 

Mother Goose 

For Big Folks 



Fanny M.Haruet 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 





Cliap.X\f!7 Copyright No.... 
Skelf.4=UB£- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



SERMONETTES FROM 
MOTHER GOOSE 



FOR BIG FOLKS 



FANNY W; flARLEY 




F. M. Harley Publishing Company, 

87-89 Washington Street, 

CHICAGO. 









Copyright 1895 
By Fanny M. Harley. 



g Ja ^ 



PREFACE. 

plHE writing of every one of these 
chapters has been a soul-lift to 

" me, I am persuaded that they 
will also be of assistance to those who 
read them; for how can a book help do- 
ing good when it has come from the 
soul ? Freely I have received, freely I 
give. F. m. h. 



Contents. 

CHAPTER I. 

"There was a man in our town" 7 

CHAPTER II. 

"There was an old woman and what do 

you think ?" 19 

CHAPTER III. 
"Mollie, my sister, and I fell out" 40 

CHAPTER IV. 
"Cross patch" 63 

CHAPTER V. 

"There was an old woman in Surrey".. 92 

CHAPTER VI. 
"Three wise men of Gotham" 105 



6 CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 
"Little Tommy Grace" 130 

CHAPTER VIII. 
"A man of words and not of deeds". . . . 150 

CHAPTER IX. 
"I saw a ship a-sailing" 163 



SERMONETTES FROM MOTHER GOOSE 

CHAPTER I. 

" There was a man in our town, 

And he was wondrous wise. 
He jumped into a bramble bush 

And scratched out both his eyes; 
And when he found his eyes were out, 

With all his might and main, 
He jumped into another bush 

And scratched them in again. " 

Many rhymes, fables and melodies 
have been and will continue to be hand- 
ed down from generation to generation. 
We as children were as much interest- 
ed in them as were our great grand 
parents when they were children. 
They have never gone out of fashion, 
neither have they ever seemed to grow 
old; and why? Because they have con- 

7 



SERMONETTES FROM 



cealed in them great and mighty 
truths; therefore they never will die, 
neither will they ever grow old. Age 
can not affect Truth. 

Four has been the sum of 2 plus 2 
since the beginning of time and it will 
continue to be through all eternity. 
Truth has no beginning and no ending. 

"Every true word is a word of God;" 
therefore whenever we realize a new 
truth we can say the Lord said it unto 
me. Words are living things. Life 
and Truth are all-powerful and can nev- 
er be destroyed nor overthrown. They 
are eternal therefore they will stand 
forever. Truth never began to be true, 
but it is true always. 

Truth is not always recognized as 
Truth. It is very often spoken when 
the speaker is entirely unconscious of 
the mighty work that he is doing; 



MOTHER GOOSE. 



when he does not even recognize the 
fact that a word is a living thing and 
that by his speaking it he is sending it 
on a journey around the universe to ac- 
complish either weal or woe according 
to his word. 

This rhyme of u Mother Goose" veils 
one of the most stupendous truths, 
whose facts are being proven daily: 
viz., man's own responsibility in mak- 
ing conditions for himself. 

Truth, being infinite, is revealed in 
countless ways and through innumera- 
ble methods. Where the teachings of 
Jesus do not appeal those of Buddha 
may. Where religion may be rejected 
ethics may succeed. Where neither 
law nor gospel can arouse loyalty or 
enthusiasm, the comedy may work the 
desired end. 

Law is one of the aspects of God; 
Wisdom is another. Omnipresence is 



10 SERXOXETTES FROM 

an inherent quality of God. Thus we 
say that Wisdom is always and ever 
working with the operation of Divine 
Law. In whatever way, therefore, 
that Truth is revealed, it is in the pro- 
cess of the manifestation of Divine 
Law. 

To him who understands Divine Law 
there is no condemnation. Each and 
every one of us has, naturally, had to 
begin with no knowledge, and of neces- 
sity must work up to All Knowledge. 
In whatever error therefore we see oth- 
ers, in merciful tenderness we should 
say: "Father, forgive them, they know 
not what they do." We have in a cer- 
tain stage of our development been just 
where they are now. We have grown 
out of that place; so must they, for Di- 
vine Law is Omnipotence and nothing 
can stay its course. 

The great first uncreate Cause of all 



MOTHER GOOSE. 11 

that is, is uncontrollable, irresistible, 
unchangeable and omnipotent. Will its 
purposes not then be carried out? 

What is it that this great first Cause 
of all wills to attain? Manifestation 
surely. And manifestation can only 
come through that in which Deity is ex- 
pressed. 

Our rhyme from "Mother Goose" 
gives the history of man from his com- 
ing forth from first Cause as express- 
ion until his return thereto in full con- 
sciousness of his divinity which he has 
proven through his demonstration. 

God is no respecter of persons. The 
nature, capacity, possibilities and pow- 
ers of one man are only a type of what 
all men are in their generic nature. 
Law would not be law, nor Principle 
be principle if, primarily, mankind were 
differently endowed. Emerson says 



12 SERMONETTES FROM 

"The history of Jesus is the history of 
every man writ large. Because one 
man was true to that which was in him 
allows that all men can be. " 

The Bible must be an individual book 
if we would have it an open book. It 
portrays the soul experience of each one 
of us from our first sense judgment un- 
til we have realized, through demon- 
stration, full and complete God con- 
sciousness and omniscience. 

Mother Goose gives us individual 
teaching. She sings of each one of us 
through a particular type man. 

If we will open our inner eye we will 
see Truth expressed everywhere and 
through everything. All advice, all ex- 
hortation and all precepts have been 
needed by us at some time in our soul 
growth. All recorded experiences have 
been or will be ours sometime during 



MOTHER GOOSE. 13 

the process of our development of God 
consciousness. Realization of this 
melts away all condemnation. As con- 
demnation decreases in us, considera- 
tion, sympathy and love increase in us. 

"There was a man in our town, 
And he was wondrous wise." 

Taking him to have been a type ot 
all the men in "our town," we were all 
"wondrous wise/' Created by Wisdom, 
being the image in which God is fully 
and completely expressed, wondrous 
wisdom is the consequence or re- 
sult. It is not an endowment from 
choice on the part of the donor, the 
Creator, but a necessary derivation 
from which there could not possibly be 
any deviation. A creator from his 
very nature, bestows life upon his cre- 
ation. In other words, the creation — 



14 SERMONETTES FROM 

the living thing— is that which expres* 
es the creator. It is therefore just like 
the creator in nature, powers and fac- 
ulties. Since the Creator is Wisdom 
unqualified, how could the creation, the 
complete expression, be other than 
"wondrous wise? 

But being and doing are two vastly 
different things. It is only in the doing 
that we prove to ourselves that we can 
do that which we have the inherent ca- 
pacity and possibility of doing. Any 
principle would be unknown and as 
though it were not, if it were not made 
manifest. First Cause, or the Priilti- 
ple, God, would be as though he were 
not if it were not for his effect, or ex- 
pression, Man. Man — the being of ef- 
fect or expression — would be as though 
he were not, did he not manifest him- 
self through demonstration. 

Man is, because of his nature, "won- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 15 

drous wise," but he is not conscious 
that this is true of himself until he 
proves it to himself. As a man proves 
to himself that he is what he is, he 
proves it to all who have eyes to see 
and ears to hear. 

His proof or his demonstration comes 
through doing or action. The power 
to do or the power to act is his because 
of his Source or Cause. With the life 
with which he is endowed came the 
power of action. 

Soul is self-consciousness. 

Of the soul it is said that it must re- 
turn to God who gave it. A return im- 
plies that there was previously a going 
away from. Therefore, for the soul to 
prove its God consciousness, it must, 
through doing or action, 'prove what it 
can do every step of the way from no 



16 SERMONETTES FROM 

self-consciousness tip to the conscious- 
ness that it is like God. 

Now our man who was so "wondrous 
wise" 



"Jumped into a bramble bush 

And scratched out both his eyes;" 

Judging from appearances wisdom was 
lacking in this man that he should do 
such a thing as this, but a knower of 
Divine Law would say he was proving 
his power of action and that through 
action will he prove his other powers 
and demonstrate his divine capacities 
and possibilities. He acted and result 
was made manifest. If he was "won- 
drous wise" why did he act so foolishly, 
do you say? Ah! he must prove his wis- 
dom as well* as his power of action! 
Was the result satisfactory to him? 



MOTHER GOOSE. 17 

No? Then let him profit by his experi- 
ence, use his wisdom and act again. 

"And when he found his eyes were out, 
With all his might and main, 
He jumped into another bush 
And scratched them in again/' 

Necessity is a fine teacher. It is said 
to be the "mother of invention." To 
invent is simply to find out what you 
know and what you can do. When we, 
through action, bring ourselves into 
very undesirable conditions, we recog- 
nize that it will only be through furth- 
er action, coupled with wisdom, that we 
can get out of these conditions. When 
the man in our melody perceived this, 
when he found himself to be in the 
darkness and misery which he had 
brought upon himself, and when he had 
suffered enough so that he was driven 



18 SERMONETTES FROM 

to turn with "all his might and main" 
to the contrary course of action,, and 
not till then, were his eyes "scratched 
in again." 

Since Mind is the only Reality, all 
real action is mental. According to 
our thinking then will all things be to 
us. Spoken words are only our think- 
ing made audible. The power to think 
is ours because of our cause which is 
Mind. From the use of this power we 
will work up, up, up, until we have at- 
tained all knowledge, all power and all 
purity. We will one day in perfect 
knowledge say with Isaiah, "Surely as 
I have thought so shall it come to pass." 



MOTHER GOOSE. 19 



CHAPTER II. 

'There was an old woman and what do 
you think? 

She lived upon nothing but victuals and 
drink; 

Victuals and drink were the chief of her 
diet, 

Yet this grumbling old woman would nev- 
er be quiet." 

How could the old woman be quiet 
when she tried to obtain satisfaction 
through that which satisfieth not? Im- 
possibilities can not be done. It is 
sometimes said that there are no impos- 
sibilities, but this is always meant 
when the true nature of that which is 
spoken is revealed. There are itnpos- 



20 SERMONETTES FROM 

sibilities for both God and man, and 
well is it for us that there are. 

The nature of anything is that which 
is fixed. It is not assumed, but is its 
essential. The nature of God is Love. 
Would it be possible then for God to 
change to hate or wrath. No, God is 
Love and God can not change. What 
shall we fear, then, since God — Love — 
Divine Love — is Omnipotence? What 
shall we be anxious about? Is not Di- 
vine Love Omniscience, and is it not 
pushing us into a perception of, and 
faith in u the eternal law of Good?" 
What need have we for a physician? 
Is not Divine Love omnipresent, and 
does it not heal our bruises every time 
we apply it? Divine Love is change- 
lessly and forever Divine Love. 

Nothing exists for us unless we per- 
ceive it and are conscious of its pres- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 21 

ence. If we do not perceive Divine 
Love; if we are not conscious that Di- 
vine Love is around and about us, up- 
holding, encircling and infolding us, 
then to our consciousness there is no 
Divine Love. 

Whether a thing is true to our con- 
sciousness or not does not alter either 
the fact nor the nature of the thing. 
Divine Love is, and recognition of it will 
prove to us that it can not fail us, for 
it is eternal, changeless and omnipotent. 
To these words can we flee when as- 
sailed by either fear, sorrow or sick- 
ness and we will find them to be heal- 
ing, courage giving, and faith strength- 
ening. 

From the earliest records, almost, it 
has been proven that material things 
have always failed those who put their 
trust in them. We can not live solely 



22 SERMONETTES FROM 

upon "victuals and drink." Man is a 
spiritual being and can not be wholly 
satisfied unless he has spiritual as well 
as material food. "Man shall not live 
by bread alone but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God." 
God is Principle, therefore deductions 
from Principle, clearly and accurately 
stated, are words that proceed out of 
the mouth of God. 

"Victuals and drink" of themselves 
contain nothing satisfying, and lack of 
satisfaction is what causes people to 
grumble. "Out of the fulness of the 
heart the mouth speaketh." When 
there is unrest in the heart the words 
are of murmuring, discontent and grum- 
bling. When the heart knows peace 
the words are of peace and satisfaction. 
To obtain peace and satisfaction the soul 
must feed upon that which will bring 



MOTHER GOOSE. 23 

such results. It is the soul which feels 
either peace or unrest. "Victuals and 
drink" do not feed the soul, therefore 
one who makes them the chief oi his 
diet will not know peace. 

That man is a spiritual being has to 
be proven every step of the way. He 
comes forth from God that he may re- 
turn to God with conscious knowledge 
of what he is. In the process of his 
coming from God one of his error be- 
liefs has been that he is a material be- 
ing, and that he is sustained by materi- 
al food alone. Like all other error be-, 
liefs this has to be outgrown. It has 
been noticed time and again that as we 
attain spirituality in thought our appe- 
tites change. We do not desire the 
coarse foods we formerly craved, but 
little by little we drop them and choose 
the lighter foods, fruits, vegetables and 



24 SERMONETTES FROM 

nuts. The more spiritual we become 
the less anxious thought we take for 
the body and what we shall eat. 

We have always been warned by both 
physicists and sacred writers not to 
make "victuals and drink" the chief of 
our diet. The materialist tells us that 
to be overfed by "victuals and drink" 
will bring upon us disease and suffering. 
Spiritual teachers tell us that "victuals 
and drink" have no real satisfying pow- 
er. It is oflly when we eat the flesh 
and drink the blood of the son of Man 
that we truly eat nourishing food. 

The flesh and blood are made and 
their quality determined by the think- 
ing and speaking. When we think the 
thoughts of Jesus we are drinking his 
blood and when we speak his words we 
are eating his flesh. Whatever words 
we speak are made flesh. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 25 

As words are living things they al- 
ways objectify. When the undesirable 
comes into our existence it shows us 
that we have been doing some wrong 
thinking. But if we will turn from 
placing our faith in 'Victuals and drink" 
(materiality) and will eat the flesh and 
drink the blood of the son of Man — 
(spiritualize ourselves) we will attain 
power over all hard conditions. * 

The question has been asked why is 
it if we are spiritual beings that we 
need to eat any material food at all? 
We have always believed that there is 
life, substance, intelligence and causa- 
tion in material things. Believing this 
we have looked to material things for 
sustenance and depended upon them for 
our life, health and happiness. 

Because man is essentially spiritual, 
having all knowledge and power, he 



26 SERMONETTES FROM 

wanted to prove to himself that he is 
what he is. In this proving process 
he had to have something to work with, 
by the use of which he could make his 
demonstrations. When we undertake 
to prove the principles of mathematics 
we use blackboard and chalk, slate and 
pencil, or paper and pen. We call 
these our tools and by the use of them 
we prove our conscious intelligence. 

There are many tools and instru- 
ments for the use of man in the course 
of his proving himself to his own con- 
sciousness to be a spiritual being. 
These tools and instruments are what 
is called matter in its various phases. 
They are of just the same importance 
and of the same value as the black- 
board and chalk by which we have 
proven so much. The blackboard and 
the chalk of themselves can do nothing; 



MOTHER GOOSE. 27 

they are lifeless and inert, they have 
no power nor intelligence of themselves 
to do anything, but when acted upon 
and used by intelligent man, mighty 
things can be wrought through their 
use. The spiritual man that God cre- 
ated was not satisfied to simply know 
all that God knows but he wanted to 
prove to himself that he knows it all, 
and it is through the use of material 
objects that he does his proving. 

When man decided to do this prov- 
ing through matter, the allegory w^hich 
explains it all to us reads: u In the 
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, 
till thou return unto the ground; for 
out of it wast thou taken; for dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou re- 
turn. " Man clothed himself with flesh, 
or, as Genesis puts it, The Lord God 
made coats of skin and clothed Adam 



28 SERMONETTES FROM 

and his wife that they might the better 
use the tools which they would make 
for themselves with their thinking, 
to prove themselves to be what they 
are. 

Dust means nothing or nonentity. So 
£ll materiality of itself is in reality 
nothing. It is simply shape to our 
sense vision. It has substance to us or 
not just according to the way we think 
about it. All things are to us accord- 
ing to our sense about them. When we 
understand what matter really is — 
shape through which intelligence can 
be expressed and manifested — we will 
lose our frantic hold upon it and turn 
to depending upon and loving the Lord 
our God. 

As long as our belief is strong in 
matter having substance and causative 
power we have laid great stress upon 



MOTHER GOOSE. 29 

the importance of what we should eat. 
We have made 'Victuals and drink" not 
only the chief of our diet but the chief 
of our desires and anxieties. When the 
truth of our being begins to dawn upon 
us, we soon see that in this matter of 
"victuals and drink" we can prove our- 
selves to be in the world but not of it. 
Fear of any kind of food will soon van- 
ish when we perceive that there is no 
causation in matter. This same per- 
ception will also relieve us of anxiety 
regarding what we shall eat and how 
it shall be prepared. A clear percep- 
tion of the truth that there is no causa- 
tion in matter will do as much to clear 
wrinkles off the faces of the people as 
any other thing that I know of. 

As long as we manifest here in the 
flesh we will eat, but how different will 
the eating be compared with what it 



30 SERMONETTES FROM 

used to be! Instead of being a slave to 
appetite we will eat when and what is 
convenient. Instead of laying great 
stress upon what we eat we will recog- 
nize that nothing we can take into our 
mouths will defile us. It is the words 
that come out of our mouths that hurt 
us. As long as we are here with this 
visible, physical shape, it will be our 
mission to demonstrate over all beliefs 
about matter, and that it has no life nor 
causation, and not until we have out- 
grown these beliefs can we say "I have 
overcome the world." 

Dependence and reliance upon "victu- 
als and drink" bring upon us trouble, 
sickness and inharmony. To change 
our thinking is the only way we can 
change these conditions. 

If man had always kept uppermost 
the remembrance that he is a spiritual 



MOTHER GOOSE. 31 

being possessing all that God is, he 
would never have heard pronounced, 
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread." 

Little Johnnie, in his composition 
said: "Pins have been known to save a 
great many lives by not swallowing 
them." Just so will error words save 
much trouble and sickness by not think- 
ing nor speaking them. An ounce of 
prevention is always worth more than 
a pound of cure. 

We clearly see that the grumbling 
which our old woman did after making 
victuals and drink the chief of her diet 
was the natural outcome of this diet. 
She is a type of mankind. We are all 
seeking satisfaction. While unsatis- 
fied we all grumble either silently or 
audibly, and we continue to grumble 
until we attain satisfaction. We want 



32 SERMOXETTES FROM 

to find and eat that which will cause us 
to cease our grumbling just as quickly 
as we possibly can. As no man liveth 
to himself alone, so we can not be in a 
grumbling mood without making those 
around us miserable too, Thoughts are 
contagious, and one of a grumbling dis- 
position is a poisonous and much to be 
dreaded member of the home or society, 
for moods are infectious. 

If dependence upon 'Victuals and 
drink" makes one unhappy and sick it 
would be well to change the diet to that 
which is life sustaining and health giv- 
ing. 

We should hold no condemnation over 
ourselves for what we have done in the 
past because what we did we did in our 
dream of ignorance. We are now awa- 
kening from this dream and attaining 



MOTHER GOOSE. 33 

the power to clearly perceive and de- 
pend upon that which satisfieth. 

We have constantly thought that 
which was not true until it has become 
a settled habit with us. Habits are 
very often hard to break. It very often 
takes great constancy of purpose and 
determination to break off an estab- 
lished habit. He who changes from 
habitual error thinking to constant 
true thinking is the one to whom the 
voice will speak: "Well done, good and 
faithful servant, enter thou into the 
joy of thy Lord." 

Whenever there is a thing that we 
ought to do, we can always be shown a 
way to accomplish it. If error think- 
ing is only a habit, why can not that 
habit be broken and a correct habit be 
formed? "Where there is a will there 
is a way." 



34 SERMONETTES FROM 

We all remember how in our illnesses 
in the past we have kept uppermost in 
our thoughts the importance and neces- 
sity of taking our medicine in the pre- 
scribed quantities and at the appointed 
times, and how everything we did was 
made secondary to this one great thing 
of obeying the commands of our physi- 
cian faithfully and conscientiously just 
as he prescribed. Our watch was open 
beside us, or the clock was turned so 
that we could see it and our thoughts 
centered upon obedience. 

We have now put ourselves under the 
care of the Great Physician, and must 
form the habit of obeying his direc- 
tions and taking his prescriptions. 
When we were taking the medicine we 
were trying to avoid sickness and avert 
death. These were the thoughts and 
beliefs uppermost with us. We have 



MOTHER GOOSE. 35 

found that the only way to put out a 
thought is to put another one in. its 
place. Instead of keeping ourselves 
obedient through fear, let us change 
our thinking and courageously cling in 
thought to life and health. Since we 
have found that our physical conditions 
are made by our thinking we have 
proven that the body will be changed 
from sickness to health by correct and 
true thinking. 

Every thought is either a healing po- 
tion or a disease generator according 
to its quality, not only for the one who 
thinks it but also upon whomsoever the 
thought may fall, u for no man liveth to 
himself, and no man dieth to himself." 
Others are affected by our thinking as 
well as ourselves. 

If we have not been accustomed to 
guarding our thinking we have to put 



36 SEKMONETTES FROM 

our effort to work at first and system- 
atically compel ourselves to administer 
healing potions of true thinking to our- 
selves. 

As "victuals and drink" have not sat- 
isfied us and as our grumbling has 
made us and others sick and poor and 
miserable let us now take the flesh and 
blood of Jesus (his thoughts and words) 
and bring rest and health unto our 
souls; "For my yoke is easy and my 
burden is light," he said. 

If we could take hours, days and 
weeks to render obedience to the phy- 
sicians whose care we had put our- 
selves under for physical ills, can we 
not much better afford the time and 
effort that we should give to coopera- 
tion with the Great Physician who 
ministers to the soul and who, if 



MOTHER GOOSE. 37 

obeyed, will lead us into health sure 
and secure? 

Perhaps in our old sick days we said 
as many as twenty times a day, u O 
dear, how my head does ache !" or, "I 
feel so awfully nervous to-day, " or some 
other self absorbed mistake, thus mak- 
ing not only ourselves feel badly but 
every one who had to listen to our com- 
plaining. 

Let us now take a prescription for 
the soul. Let us pay attention to what 
we are doing and systematically, by the 
clock, repeat some statement of Truth, 
three times a day, or, every four, three, 
two or one hour according to our ne- 
cessity. Suppose we say I am not a 
material being, sick and sinful, but I 
am a spiritual being, perfect, pure and 
whole; or, I will no longer speak the 



38 SERMOXETTES FROM 

words that show forth in poverty, 
weakness and sickness, but I will 
speak true words of myself and mani- 
fest that I am what I am, the perfect 
ideal of the Divine Mind; or, I am not 
a sinner, ill tempered and selfish and 
proud, but I am in my real and true 
being the exact image of God, pure, 
loving and good. I will speak true 
words of myself till I consciously see 
myself to be not only God's image but 
God's perfect likeness also, pure in 
heart, and whole, perfect and com- 
plete. 

If we eat and drink such words as 
these half as many years as we have 
depended upon "nothing but victuals 
and drink" we will find that we will 
become not only free from all desire to 
grumble but will be filled with a peace 
unspeakable. We will have joyous, hap- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 39 

py, bounding health and realization that 
all things are ours now for we know 
that the earth is the Lord's and the 
fulness thereof. 



40 SERMOXETTE3 FROM 



CHAPTER III. 

"Mollie, my sister, and I fell out, 
And what do } r ou think it was about? 
She loved coffee, and I loved tea, 
And that was the reason we couldn't 
agree. " 

Unless we allow each other individu- 
ality there is very likely to be a falling- 
out. What right has Mollie to try to 
make me drink coffee if I do not care 
for it, or why should I try to inflict the 
drinking of tea upon her when she does 
not want to drink it? 

How often do we see one domineer- 
ing member spoil the pleasure of an en- 
tire family? Perhaps a father or a 



MOTHER GOOSE. 41 

mother will, without any consideration 
for each other or for their children, de- 
cide that each and all must do thus and 
so, even if the tastes and desires of ev- 
ery one of them run in another direc- 
tion. The injustice that is done to 
children by not allowing them any indi- 
viduality is often cruel and sometimes 
heartrending. 

I believe many of the people of to- 
day who have anarchial tendency have 
developed it through the injustice in- 
flicted upon them when they were chil- 
dren. Christ love often has to become 
very largely developed in the adult be- 
fore he can forgive, to the extent of for- 
getfulness,the indignities put upon him 
in childhood. Selfishness is such a deep 
seated error in the race that mothers 
very seldom know to what extent they 
are governed by it and how they allow 



42 SERMOXETTES FROM 

it to cause them to ruin their children. 
When I was a little girl I visited a 
family, once, where three orphan chil- 
dren lived with their grandfather. His 
intention was to be kind to them and 
he thought he was kind but his tyranny 
in some things was almost past believ- 
ing. For instance, at table he helped 
the plates very bountifully. He had an 
excellent appetite and thought because 
he could eat heartily every one else 
could. These children were not allowed 
to say one word, make one request, 
about what or how much should be put 
upon their plates but were commanded 
u to be silent at table." He often gave 
them more than it was possible for a 
delicately reared child to comfortably 
eat but eat it he demanded they should; 
and he would sit at the table until they 
had disposed of everything that was 



MOTHER GOOSE. 43 

upon their plates. They had their 
choice to "eat what was before them, 
or, be punished." My little heart used 
to swell with pity for them and though 
he tried to be kind to me there were 
many times I could not think of him as 
other than u a hateful old man." He 
did not consider that children had any 
rights whatsoever, but that they must 
instantly obey their elders under every 
circumstance. 

The little boy was a great favorite 
with one of his aunts. She used to sur- 
reptitiously remove things from his 
plate to hers, for she was an adult and 
could leave what she chose uneaten. 
She did not realize that she was teach- 
ing him deception. When he grew up 
he ran away from home and was not 
heard of for years. 

This may seem to a great many of 



44 SERMOXETTES FROM 

my readers an exaggerated case, but I 
have known of many homes where tyr- 
anny of one kind or another was prac- 
ticed on the children where the parents 
in their deep-rooted selfishness were 
entirely oblivious of the fact. 

How many children have been forced 
to go to church on hot summer Sundays 
when they have wanted so much to go 
to the fields or to the parks or to stay 
quietly at home? But no, the consci- 
entious and God-fearing mother has 
refused all requests and tears and in- 
sisted on the church going. She car- 
ried her point but their hearts were far 
from the worship of God. They fos- 
tered a rebellion which, when they 
attained manhood and womanhood, kept 
them as far away from the church as 
they could possibly be. 

I know of a man about thirty years 



MOTHER GOOSE. 45 

of age who is remarkable for his spirit- 
uality. He says: "I had no teachers in 
spiritual matters when I was a little 
boy except the grass, the trees and the 
wind. The secrets they told me and 
the things they taught me then have 
always staid by me. I learned of them 
and found God. Their teachings have 
kept me pure in heart and pure in mor- 
als." This mother allowed her boy to 
live his own life. Did she make a mis- 
take? 

Of course, we all know that when 
parents know the Truth that they can 
direct the energy of their children in 
the right direction, but unless the par- 
ents do know the Truth it takes an un- 
common amount of good sense on the 
part of the children to keep them from 
running adrift. When the blind lead 
the blind they both fall into the ditch. 



46 SERMOXETTES FROM 

It takes great knowledge of Truth, 
great consecration of heart to Princi- 
ple to fit one to become a parent, a lead- 
er or a teacher. The one who dictates, 
guides, or advises needs to clearly know 
that what he is teaching is true. Great 
responsibility rests with a leader in any 
movement. The people as a mass are 
averse to doing their own thinking in 
either material or spiritual affairs. 
They prefer to follow^ a leader as sheep 
follow^ their leader. Whichever way 
he jumps they all jump. It will be well 
for the people when they individually 
set out to do their own thinking; when 
they perceive that each man has got to 
work out his own salvation. 

Our actions depend upon our motive 
as to whether they are righteous or un- 
righteous. If Mollie wanted to force 
me to drink coffee simply because she 



MOTHER GOOSE. 47 

was headstrong and determined to 
carry her own ends she was in error. 
If I withstood Mollie from principle, 
and because I saw it was not wisdom 
to allow her to hypnotize me into giv- 
ing up my individuality I was sensible 
and right. If I withstood her from ob- 
stinacy I was in error. What could 
possibly be my reason for wanting her 
to drink tea? If it was a righteour 
reason I could explain it to her. If she 
was reasonable she would accept my 
explanation, and, because her reason ac- 
cepted the tea she would very soon, in 
all probability, become as fond of it as I 
am. 

The dictatorial disposition which 
Mollie and I have shown in the little 
matter of whether tea or coffee should 
be the beverage used at our table is car- 
ried into many of the daily affairs in 



48 SERMONETTES FROM 

our existence and is very often carried 
into affairs which concern only us and 
our God. It has been an easy thing for 
us to entirely overlook and forget that 
the Declaration of Independence, on 
which the government of our country is 
founded, gives each and every man the 
liberty to worship God after the dic- 
tates of his own conscience. Therefore 
coercion of any kind is unlawful mor- 
ally as well as spiritually. 

How truly has it been said: "Men 
will wrangle for religion, write for it, 
fight for it, die for it — anything but 
live for it." Would not the aroma from 
a perfect life do far more toward win- 
ning disciples to a knowledge of Truth 
than all the arguments and sermons and 
wars and martyrdoms that the whole 
w r orld has undergone and endured? He 
who is greatest in. the world to-day, he 



MOTHER GOOSE. 49 

who is King of kings and Lord of lords 
is the one who lived his religion; is the 
one who blessed and healed and helped, 
but who gave each one his choice to be- 
lieve in his teachings or not. 

Neither dictation nor argument ever 
convert. The way to lead people into 
a new line of thought is to impress 
them with either its beauty or its util- 
ity. If Mollie can show me neither of 
these results from her love of coffee she 
need not hope to induce me to drink it. 
If I can not show her some marked ben- 
efit from the use of tea why should I 
expect to proselyte her into loving it? 

If it is not convenient for any cause 
for us to be able to purchase both tea 
and coffee, one of us, clearly, would 
have to give in to the other. Which 
would it be? Why the one who had 



50 SERMONETTES FROM 

the most generosity and love. Where 
love is there is agreement. 

An ideal home can only be found 
where divine love dwells. Much that 
the world has called love has not been 
love at all but animal magnetism. Love 
can be easily known by her fruits. She 
is gentle and kind. She seeks not her 
own. She believes all things good and 
hopes all things good of every one with 
whom she comes in contact. She does 
not coerce bift she gives true liberty. 
She, herself, aspires to attain the Christ 
character and consciousness. She has 
faith to believe that every one else is 
striving for the same perfection that 
she, herself, is aiming for. She under- 
stands that all are in the process of ev- 
olution and that every one is doing the 
best he knows at this stage in his pro- 
cess. 



MOTHER GOOSE, 51 

Love can look past all that which ap- 
pears to be mysterious in our human ex- 
periences and thus keep her faith warm 
in God, for she knows that all appear- 
ances are but shadows of past igno- 
rance which can now be wiped away by 
true thinking. 

Love is patient and kind in the home. 
While she does not condone idiosvncra- 
sies yet neither does she unkindly criti- 
cise them, but wisely leads, by precept 
and example, into higher and better 
ways. 

Love is never dictatorial, nor envi- 
ous of her authority, neither is she 
easily provoked to condemnation of any 
one, for she knows that in the fulness 
of time every one will strive to become 
as the Christ. 

If Mollie and I had been filled with 
divine love we would have had no fall- 



52 SE-RMONETTES FROM 

ing out. We would have given each 
other true liberty. And we would have 
had no bickering over any material 
thing. In Divine Love there is neither 
contention nor strife. When we are 
filled with divine Love we are pure in 
heart. The pure in heart see God — 
Spirit, and know the unreality of all 
material things and that they are un- 
worthy of any altercation. 

There will be no fallings out in relig- 
ion when we all have learned to look to 
the Spirit for life and health and peace. 
When we have learned to love God 
with all our hearts we will lay no stress 
on whether we have been immersed, or 
sprinkled or even whether we have 
been baptized with water at all or not. 
Close communion or open communion 
will not disturb us for we will be com- 
muning every minute with the Lord our 



MOTHER GOOSE. 53 

God. The bishop's hands will make no 
difference on our heads for we will feel 
that the Spirit of God is in constant 
descent upon us and it will unite us to 
our Source as no human agency can do. 
But we will have all love and consider- 
ation for every one who believes he ob- 
tains any good or any comfort from 
any of these forms and ceremonies. 
When we love mercy, do justly and 
walk humbly before God we will have 
no condemnation for any one no matter 
what he does. Divine Love will make 
us tolerant. Religious intolerance is 
what causes "fallings out." 

If Mollie and I had looked this mat- 
ter fairly and squarely in the face we 
would have found that it was not really 
honest in us to try to influence or co- 
erce each other as we did. No person 
of genuine honesty would try to in- 



54 SERMONETTES FROM 

terfere with the individuality of an- 
other. 

Each must discover the Truth for 
himself. Each must aspire to know 
and do the Truth. Each must become 
conscious of this oneness with the 
Father for himself. No person can do 
any of this for us. It is against Divine 
Law, that one person shall do the work 
of another, for all flesh must see the 
salvation of God, each man for him- 
self. 

We can not know ourselves to be free 
from guile if we, in any way, intention- 
ally influence another to do a thing that 
he would not have done of his own free 
will. Freedom to find God, each in his 
own way, is the divine right of every 
man, woman and child. Freedom to 
think truly, freedom to speak truly, 



MOTHER GOOSE. 55 

freedom to do righteously, belongs to 
every one of us. 

Mentality is one just as the atmos- 
phere is one. The air we. inhale comes 
from the general atmosphere. The air 
we exhale goes into the general atmos- 
phere. In the process of inhaling or 
exhaling the air we breathe and use in 
our houses, manufactories, etc., becomes 
either purified or contaminated. We, 
as a planet, make our general atmos- 
phere. We, as individuals, do each our 
share toward making the general at- 
mosphere. To keep the atmosphere of 
a city pure each house, factory, hotel, 
etc., must do its part, keeping its own 
air pure. If you allow the air in your 
home to become foul and stagnant and 
then open your doors and windows you 
are allowing just that much foul air to 



56 SERMOXETTES FROM 

be put into the general atmosphere. If 
in all the homes of an entire city the air 
is allowed to become foul, there would 
be a great deal of impurity let loose in- 
to the general atmosphere. But if all 
the homes in all the cities every where 
kept their air pure and unpolluted the 
general atmosphere would be clean and 
pure for the people every where to 
breathe. 

Now, it is just this way with the 
mental atmosphere. We take into our 
mentalities the beliefs and thoughts of 
the race. We hold them for a time 
and then return them, either purified or 
more polluted, back to the general 
store. We can purify our mentalities 
by keeping ourselves positive against 
outside thought currents and holding 
our mental eye constantly on what is 



MOTHER GOOSE. 57 

really true. Our thinking goes out in- 
to the general atmosphere just as does 
our breathing. There could be no 
means possibly devised which would 
prevent this, so we can see the im- 
mense importance of doing our part 
to better its quality. 

As each fraction has its particular 
part and place in the unit, so each one 
of us has our particular part and place 
in the universe. The unit would not 
be complete if the tiniest fraction 
should be missing. Harmony can only 
be demonstrated in mathematics by 
each and every fraction being put in its 
proper place in the working of the 
problem. Harmony can only be dem- 
onstrated in the universe by each and 
every individual doing his or her 



58 SERMONETTES FROM 

best and truest and highest thinking. 

Man being the expression of God has 
God powers. God-Principle is uncon- 
trollable. Man can develop in con- 
sciousness until he proves to himself 
that he, too, is uncontrollable in his 
thinking by anything outside of himself. 
He can become positively his own law- 
maker and lawgiver. Man can dictate 
to himself what he will think. I will 
think Truth, and I will not think er- 
ror is uniting his will to the Father's 
will- 
Since what we think goes into the 
general thought atmosphere and is ab- 
sorbed into the mentalities of our fel- 
low men, do you not see the importance 
of sending out none but clean, pure, 
true thoughts? While we were igno- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 59 

rant of Truth we did not know how to 
purify our thinking but now, since we 
are awake to the Truth, we can take 
every thought which we absorb, state 
its truth or untruth and send it out in- 
to the general store to add richness, 
strength, purity and power. As soon 
as we learn that we can do this we find 
out the responsibility that is attached 
to our thinking, and we learn that it is 
through our thinking that we can carry 
out all the instructions of him who said 
u Go ye into all the world, preach the 
gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, 
and raise the dead." 

Degree on degree we become con- 
scious of our God capacities and pow- 
ers, step by step do we demonstrate 
them. As surely as Law is Law will 
we, in the fulness of time, demonstrate 



60 SERMOXETTES FROM 

that each one of us is the Christ. 
"Righteousness is for the individual 
soul." The world is simply a company 
of individuals. There is as much re- 
sponsibility attached to each one's 
thinking as if he were the only one. 

One of our writers has said: "Indi- 
viduality is the divine birthright of the 
individual. Its supreme charm is its 
ceaseless effort to be its ideal in spite 
of all the world's resistance. Its un- 
foldment is the sovereign art of life. 

"As the artist expresses a definite 
truth, harmonious in all its proportions, 
and converts an abstract notion into an 
apprehensible form, color or sound, so 
individuality represents an effort of the 
soul to express a symphony in consci- 
ousness, perfect and symmetrical in all 
its faculties and functions. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 61 

"All human egos are consciously or 
unconsciously engaged in this art and 
persistently working out their innate 
plan. To the degree that they identi- 
fy action with the ideal superstructure 
do they take rank and station in the 
spiral of race progression. For, only 
personalities fade while the individual- 
ity glides ever silently and gloriously 
along the eternal path of the Law." 

Mollie and I had not learned this 
truth when we had our falling out, but 
now, having learned it, we will fall in 
and cooperate with the eternal law of 
liberty. 

W. ID. Channing says : "We were 
made for free action. This alone is 
life, and enters into all that is good and 
great. Virtue is free choice of the 
right ; love,, the free embrace of the 



G2 SERMOXETTES FROM 

heart ; grace, 'the free motion of the 
limbs ; genius, the free, bold flight of 
thought ; eloquence, its free and fer- 
vent utterance." 



MOTHER GOOSE. 63 



CHAPTER IV. 

" Cross patch, 

Draw the latch, 
Sit by the fire and spin; 

Take a cup, 

And drink it up, 
Then call your neighbors in." 

One of the most foolish things that 
we can do is to be absorbed in our- 
selves. Constant thinking of our own 
feelings, our own plans, our own pleas- 
ures, disappointments, crosses, etc., etc., 
is slow suicide, besides making us a 
trial to ourselves, family and friends. 
One who is self absorbed draws the 
latch across his own heart and shuts in 



64 SERMOXETTES FROM 

the divinity of his nature. He sup- 
presses the waters of love, life, health, 
harmony and all the good which should 
be constantly flowing from him for the 
blessing and healing of mankind. Who- 
ever does this is not even awake to the 
laws of his being. He is so undevel- 
oped in this respect that he does not 
use the reason with which he is en- 
dowed, but continually acts contrary to 
the dictates of wisdom. 

One who lives only for himself be- 
comes morose, gloomy and selfish. He 
does not try to make others happy. 
He does not try to lift the burdens of 
other people. He is a damper on the 
souls of all with whom he comes in con- 
tact. If other people love him it is be- 
cause they force themselves to do so. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 65 

Spontaneous love is very seldom given 
to him. 

''Cross patches" are greatly to be pit- 
ied. They are "cross patches" because 
their souls are as yet too undeveloped 
to know that good only comes to them 
in the measure in which they have first 
given it. 

Instead of being jealous and envious 
of the blessings which we see other peo- 
ple have we should rejoice in the law 
and be glad, for as they have only re- 
ceived according to their deserts we 
know that we can do as they did and 
bring the same blessing upon our heads. 
If we want to reap blessings we must 
sow the seed that will produce bless- 
ings. Every tree bears seed after its 
own kind. Whatever anyone has, 
either of weal or woe, is because of his 



66 SERMONETTES FROM 

having planted the seeds for those very 
things. Because of this law we want, 
by every thought, word and deed, to 
preach the gospel that men may be 
taught to plant good seed in the gar- 
dens of their hearts. 

"Cross patches" never have good 
health. They nearly always suffer 
from constipation, or stomach trouble, 
or have the blues. When water is 
dammed up it becomes stagnant and 
poisonous. When wrong thoughts are 
held their impurity acts upon the blood. 
The entire system becomes out of 
order from the bad condition of the 
blood. 

There is no tonic in the world that 
can compare to that of true thinking. 
It enriches the blood and strengthens 
the very marrow of the bones. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 67 

Much time could be saved by lectur- 
ers and hearers in the many learned 
dissertations that are to-day given on 
the subject of "vibrations." For it 
could be told in a very few words that 
right, pure thinking raises the vibra- 
tions, while impure error thinking low- 
ers them. This knowledge is worth all 
the Yogi teaching that ever has been, 
or ever will be, given to the world. 

All that we need to do to become 
healthy, wealthy and wise is to attend 
to our thinking. If we do not watch 
that our thinking is in accordance with 
Principle we need not be surprised if 
we are sick, poor and either a fool or 
become crazed with melancholia. 

Our work is with our own self. We 
do not have to change other people and 
things. We simply have to change our 



68 SERMONETTES FROM 

own thinking about them. As we think 
of them so they are to us. Why is my 
child sweet to me and disagreeable to 
you? Because I see it in one light and 
you see it in another. It is the same 
child, the difference is in our view of it. 
Why do you like Wagner while I pre- 
fer Beethoven? Because . you have 
trained yourself to think one way while 
I think from another standpoint. 

Limitation in thinking is what the 
world calls evil. We overcome limita- 
tion through growth. God and all of 
God's creations and manifestations are 
good. If we do not see them as good 
we are limited in our perception, conse- 
quently in our thinking. It is there- 
fore we who are in error. It is we who 
do the evil when we allow ourselves to 
see any person or thing as less than 



MOTHER GOOSE. 69 

they really are. Clearly then what we 
need to do is to change our own think- 
ing. This we can accomplish by prac- 
tice. 

The crossest patch in all the world 
can change himself into a blessing to 
self, family and friends if he desires to 
make this change in himself. He will 
be pushed into making the change some- 
time for this is the ultimate of what 
Divine Law will work in every one of 
us, but if we, in our thinking, aspire to 
conscious cooperation with the law of 
Good that is working in us, we can 
bring the desired end to pass, perhaps 
eons sooner than otherwise. When we 
consciously measure up to the perform- 
ance and bringing forth of an ideal, 
every power and capacity within us 
works for the attainment of the desired 



70 SERMONETTES FROM 

end. If we do not cooperate with law, 
if we hush our aspirations and allow 
ourselves to become inert, then must we 
take the consequences. 

It will make a vast difference to 
us whether we allow Divine Law to 
lovingly call to us "Come on," or wheth- 
er we compel it to sternly command us 
"Go on." To a certain point in under- 
standing with each one of us it has 
been "go on ;" but now we have awak- 
ened to the beneficence of the Law and 
we gratefully and gladly hear the lov- 
ing voice, "Come up higher! Come un- 
til thou dost realize that I am in thee 
and thou art in Me." In aspiration and 
adoration we say: "Lord, I come." 

When one has come into an under- 
standing of Divine Law he never con- 
demns. Well is it for the cross patch- 



MOTHER GOOSE: 71 

es when one in their family or among 
their friends conies into this under- 
standing. 

The world has always either con- 
demned cross patches because they 
were so cross or condoned the cross- 
ness out of ignorant pity for their ill 
health. We should neither condemn 
nor condone but should put our whole 
force, our entire time, in speaking the 
truth of the reality of our friend every 
time we think of him thus closing our 
eyes to the untrue appearances. No 
man liveth unto himself alone. The 
thoughts that we think fall upon other 
people and enter their mentalities as 
suggestion. If we close our eyes to 
appearances of evil and think only of 
the truth of Being, others will respond 
to our thinking and will directly begin 



72 SERMONETTBS FROM 

> 

to see themselves as they really are. 
Oh, blessed privilege of doing right, 
of speaking trul) r , of thinking purely! 

Not only one "cross patch" will be 
helped by our true thinking, but they 
will all be helped, for there is neither 
time nor space to thought. It is omni- 
present. At sometime in our soul evo- 
lution we have all been u cross patches. " 
As it is always darkest just before the 
dawn, so were we about the crossest, 
the most miserably unhappy, or the 
sickest, just before we begun to desire 
to change our way of thinking. 

None will be drawn to read this book 
except he who desires to change his 
w r ay of thinking. To such I gladly 
give my message. 

We change our thinking by laying 
down false beliefs and taking up right 



MOTHER GOOSE. 73 

thoughts. There is a process involved 
in this as there is in all mental train- 
ing; in all teaching for the soul. All 
of our thinking is in words spoken si- 
lently. As we think we show forth. 
If we think only of self we speak of, 
and act only for, self. 

A fault discovered is half cured. 
When we discover ourselves to be self- 
absorbed we can, by clear, persistent, 
logical, and scientific thinking and 
speaking, entirely change this charac- 
teristic to one of love and kindly 
thoughtfulness for others. If there is 
physical disability it can be, and will 
be, cured at the same time that the 
error in character is being wiped away 
for the physical ailment is the effect of 
the wrong thinking that made the 
wrong characteristic. When this 



74 SERMONETTES FROM 

cause is removed its effect will also be 
removed. True, beautiful thinking 
will result in beautiful effects. 

The divine self of each one of us is 
the spiritual man which God created in 
His own image. This Real of us is 
called by many different names. As 
God is First Cause of all that really is, 
spiritual man is the "effect." As God 
is the Creator, spiritual man is the 
Created, or, the Creation. As God is 
Principle — spiritual man is the "expres- 
sion." As God is Primal Force, or en- 
ergy — spiritual man is the "result." 
As God is First Cause of all that is, 
magnificent variety belongs to the na- 
ture of God — hence no one can meditate 
much upon God and not become grand- 
er and wiser and stronger and truer. 
Whoso truly meditates upon God will 



MOTHER GOOSE. 75 

become all glorious both within and 
without. 

Since Spiritual man is the direct ef- 
fect of God — having no other cause nor 
source — he must be of the same nature 
as God. For the effect can partake of 
no other nature than its Source. God, 
as Primal Force or Energy, works un- 
ceasingly. God works through the 
spiritual till it in turn is manifested. 
The first work of God is Creation. 
The second work is Creation made vis- 
ible or manifest. 

As spiritual man is the exact image 
of God he has all God powers; hence, 
his power to think is God-derived. 
Even though he does not consciously 
choose to cooperate with God in his 
thinking he can not stay the working of 
God-Force in him, for it is Omnipo- 



76 SERMONETTES FROM 

tence and his wrong thinking will push 
him into places and conditions where 
his suffering will be so keen that he 
will, at last, be glad to begin the work 
of right thinking. He will reach that 
stage in development where he will 
drink u the cup" and will find the dregs 
very bitter, after which he will begin 
to work with the Law instead of 
against it as he had hitherto. If we 
work with the law all is harmony and 
peace. If we try to resist it we suffer 
in consequence. 

Divine law can only be resisted or ig- 
nored by us to a certain point, after 
that we turn and flee into its protec- 
tion with all our hearts and with all 
possible speed. By ignoring the law of 
our Being we have brought ourselves 
into all manner of disease in every de- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 77 

partment of our existence. By cooper- 
ating with this law we will bring our- 
selves into harmony in all ways. 

If the u cross patches" had known Di- 
vine Law, they would never have taken 
any cup of pleasure of any kind with 
the motive or intent of keeping it to 
themselves. Our neighbors must share 
our good things and not be excluded 
from them. It is the desire to keep 
good things to ourselves that reacts up- 
on our health and causes us suffering. 
If we wish to get rid of ill health we 
must change our thinking. 

Because selfishness has been such a 
common error its' results are common 
ailments. Take, for instance, consti- 
pation. It tightens up the heart strings 
and acts as an astringent to all emo- 
tions of love and good will. The culti- 



78 SERMONETTES FROM 

vation of contrary thoughts and feel- 
ings will cure the constipation. If the 
selfishness has lasted a long time the 
disease of constipation may have be- 
come chronic. The physical outshow- 
ing is the picture in which is reflected 
the thinking which was done before the 
picture was formed. In proportion as 
the error characteristic is cured so will 
the disease be cured. 

We can change our characteristics 
by the speaking of true w^ords. Words 
are living seeds which bear fruit each 
after its own kind. Thoughts are si- 
lent words. As we think so we are. 
If we have been heartless and regard- 
less of other people, it is because in our 
thinking we have been self absorbed 
and covetous. 

"I will give you a set of words which 



MOTHER GOOSE. 79 

I believe will cure constipation, no mat- 
ter what the complications may be. It 
is this: I am not selfish, neither do I 
criticise nor condemn, but I am com- 
passionate and merciful, loving and 
kind in my thinking toward everybody 
and everything in all the world; neith- 
er have I any lust of any kind for any- 
thing, but I am pure in heart. When 
you speak these words feel them in 
your heart and apply them individually 
to each person of whom you think. You 
will be amazed at the change that will 
come in your feelings toward people 
and your eyes will be opened in great 
surprise at the many opportunities 
which you will find to be kind and lov- 
ing to others. 

Our deepest errors are the ones 
which we do not see. What we see in 



80 SERMONETTES FROM 

others is lying dormant in ourselves, for 
like sees like. The Lord our God is too 
pure to behold iniquity. When we see 
an error in other people we should im- 
mediately cleanse our own hearts and 
mentalities of that selfsame error. 
When we have cleansed ourselves we 
may no longer see it in others. Selfish 
people always think others are selfish. 
Sensitive people — they who are always 
having their feelings hurt — are the 
most regardless of the feelings of oth- 
er people and the most cruel and exapt- 
ing of them. Verily we must pull the 
beam out of our own eyes before we can 
take the mote out of our brother's eye. 

Another way in which selfishness is 
universally expressed is in fear. When 
we fear this or that we are thinking of 
self. Fear is doubt. When we fear 



MOTHER GOOSE. 81 

we are not trusting in and loving the 
Lord our God. If the time we spend 
in fear was occupied in affirmations of 
faith and love, the Good would be made 
manifest in our existence very speed- 
ily. 

Now, take these people who have 
stomach troubles, bad breath, can not 
eat this or that, etc., see how self-willed 
they are! They are sweet and lovely 
as long as everything goes their way. 
As long as everyone is subservient to 
them they are amiable and gracious, but 
when they are put upon an equal foot- 
ing with others then they begin to plan 
and struggle to cany their own ends 
and take the lead for they are usually 
ambitious. Very self-willed people are 
unreasonable. When thev are unrea- 
sonable in matters temporal, they are 



82 SERMONETTES FROM 

also lacking in reason in matters spirit- 
ual. It is very hard to help people who 
are not amenable to reason. We should 
exercise reason. 

No matter how much we may intui- 
tively know of the Truth we can never 
make good teachers unless the faculty 
of reasoning is developed. When we 
all become willing to lay aside preju- 
dice and open ourselves to divine rea- 
son there will never be any disagree- 
ments among us. There will be fewer 
differences among teachers about spir- 
itual things when we are willing to list- 
en as did Isaiah when the Lord said 
unto him, "Come now, and let us reason 
together." 

Unreasonable people are very hard to 
live with. Warm friendships can not 
be established with unreasonable peo- 



.MOTHER GOOSE. 83 

pie. There must be mutual esteem be- 
fore true friendship can be established. 
Many times self-willed and unreasona- 
ble people attach others to them by the 
strength and power of their will, but 
this is a case of hypnotism on the one 
side and mental servitude on the other. 
True friendship allows true liberty. 
Each can think as he or she is led by 
the spirit of Truth, and each can ex- 
press his or her convictions without 
fear of criticism on the part of the oth- 
er. The self-willed, unreasonable per- 
son has not yet come into an under- 
standing of the purpose of his creation. 
He unconsciously prays my will must 
be done, instead of "thy will be done." 

Unreasonable people often have trou- 
ble with their eyes and ears. None are 
so blind as those who will not see. 



84 SERMONETTES FROM 

None are so deaf as those who will not 
hear. Unreasonable people are always 
prejudiced. They have preconceived 
notions and opinions and are deter- 
mined to make other people accept 
them whether or no. Is it any wonder 
that these people can not digest their 
food and that they have stomach trou- 
ble of one kind or another? 

A steadfast desire to overcome these 
faults of character will overcome them. 
By the persistent use of the word of 
Truth w^e can overcome any thing. 
When we speak words of Truth we are 
bringing to our consciousness that 
which is true of ourselves. The real of 
us is never changed by any circum- 
stance nor condition. Our knowledge 
of what we really and truly are changes 
and increases. With increasing know- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 85 

ledge we prove to ourselves little by 
little that we are what we are — the im- 
age of God, 

The words that we speak take form. 
As we speak so do things appear to us. 
If we do not like things as they appear 
to us now we can speak words opposite 
to those we have been speaking and 
have opposite appearances. Our word 
is "like a hammer that breaketh the 
rock in pieces. " Because we have 
snared ourselves with the words of our 
mouths, need we stay snared? No! for 
we have the privilege of undoing with 
true words all that we have done with 
error words. By our words we can 
give "health to our bones." According 
to our own words will we be pardoned 
for all our mistakes, our sins and our 
sicknesses. Let us then speak the 



bb SERMONETTES FROM 

words that belong to our true self. 
They will become objectified to our 
consciousness just as surely as the er- 
ror words have been. 

Let us speak somewhat after this 
manner. I am not self-willed and un- 
reasonable. Such foolishness and ig- 
norance have no part nor place in me. 
I am a spiritual being and not material 
in any sense. All materiality is noth- 
ing but shape or objectified thinking. 
All the errors which I see in my char- 
acter, my body and my estate have 
come from wrong thinking. From 
now on I will endeavor to find out what 
is true so that my thoughts and my 
words may be only of Truth. 

I hereby lay aside all pre-conceived 
opinions and all prejudices for and 
against every thing and every person 



MOTHER GOOSE. 87 

and every teaching in all the world. It 
is the Truth that I want and the Truth 
only. I will have no w r ill of my own. 
To do the Father's will shall be my de- 
light. I lay down all desires of every 
kind. To know and do the Truth shall 
be my one never ceasing aspiration. 

I fear nothing, I am anxious about 
nothing, I shall strive for nothing. I 
shall be calm and cool and patient and 
loving and reasonable always. All im- 
patience, all selfishness, all unreasona- 
bleness are being washed away from 
my consciousness by my spoken word of 
Truth. As these errors disappear from 
my consciousness Divine Love takes 
possession of me. As it increases and 
strengthens in me it causes all errors of 
character, body and affairs to melt 
away. 



88 SERMONETTES FROM 

I will have no ends of my own to ac- 
complish. My only aim shall be to 
work for the weal and glory of man- 
kind. Thus shall I glorify God. I will 
be grander and nobler and purer than 
to work for any private ends. I shall 
remember always when I am speaking 
of the truth of my being that I am 
speaking true words of every one, for 
we are all one. I will endeavor in all 
ways to be God-like for my mission in 
the world is to prove man's likeness to 
God. In the severest travail of my 
soul to know God I shall be patient and 
calm and cheerful. My eagerness to 
know Truth shall never make me un- 
mindful of others. On every occasion 
I shall speak to them the words they 
need and try to teach them the way of 
life. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 89 

I know that as soon as I am pure 
enough in the thoughts of my heart that 
I shall see God. Patience and kind- 
ness and mercy and love will wash me 
clean. I will, in honor, prefer others 
to myself. In my real being I am as 
pure as God for God created me like 
unto the absolute Good. I prove to my- 
self that I am like God by being like 
God in my conscious thinking and 
speaking and doing. 

There can be no prevarication, no 
thing hidden from the Lord my God. 
He searcheth the heart and he knoweth 
them of honest intent. I can not even 
deceive myself if I commune with my 
Lord for he will take all veils from be- 
fore my eyes and show me every bar- 
rier that is keeping me out of the king- 
dom of heaven. The power and the 



90 SERMOXETTES FROM 

capacity are mine to press forward un- 
til in my consciousness I and the Fa- 
ther are one. I will then have attained 
the peace that passeth understanding. 
I will then know the Truth and will be 
free from all ills of every kind. 

When we were little children we re- 
peated our multiplication table over and 
over again. Perhaps for months and 
years we used it before we really un- 
derstood its truth. Finally it became 
our own knowledge, also its why and 
wherefore. It would be just this way 
with any truth. Much repeating of any 
word will open up its meaning to us. 
If we speak true words of ourselves, 
even though we but dimly perceive 
them to be true, yet, after much speak- 
ing of them they will some day open up 
to us as clear as can be. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 91 

Let us train ourselves to speak the 
Truth to ourselves and of ourselves at 
all times and in all places. Our true 
words will not return to us void but 
they will accomplish that whereunto 
they were sent. Thus will we put 
away forever the cup of selfishness and 
drink only from the cup of blessedness . 



92 SERMOXETTES FROM 



CHAPTER V. 

" There was an old woman in Surrey, 
Who was morn, noon and night in a 
hurry ; 
Called her husband a fool, 
Drove the children to school, 
The worrying old woman of Surrey." 

Self-poise is one of the first things 
to be cultivated by the one who wishes 
to realize his ideal nature. To be al- 
ways self-possessed is to be master of 
time and circumstances, for in accord 
with that law that Mind is all, we know 
that nothing has any power over us on- 
ly as we give it power, and that we cre- 
ate our own environments. The inhar- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 93 

monious experiences in our existence 
are only the reflections or outshowings 
of the turmoil that is going on within 
our mentalities. 

He who is self-possessed manages his 
affairs so smoothly that things are said 
to be conducted in his business "by the 
clock." The self-possessed govern their 
work. They are not driven by it. 
They accomplish several times as much 
with less fatigue, greater enjoyment 
and with more real dispatch than do 
those who are always in a hurry. 

Hurry and worry are twins which 
should be strangled in infancy. If this 
has not been done they must be assassi- 
nated even now, their age and growth 
notwithstanding. No characteristic 
must be allowed to remain in us that 
does not work for the manifestation of 



94 SERMONETTES FROM 

perfection and that can not be used for 
the weal of our brother man. We 
should so love humanity that we would 
be willing to make constant effort to 
put away from us every sin that holds 
us in bondage of any kind. If others 
see us overcome obstacles and rise above 
tribulations they can take heart and 
persevere in the working out of and 
over their life problems. No man can 
live unto himself alone. His strength 
or his weakness affect not only those 
near and dear to him but it extends also 
through them to the ones with whom 
they come in contact. 

A housekeeper who is in a constant 
state of fret and worry is often an an- 
noyance to her whole family and some- 
times to an entire community. The 
neighbors learn to dread a visit from 



MOTHER GOOSE. 95 

her, and her husband and childen either 
go out for their entertainment or else 
are in durance vile while they stay at 
home. Women who worry all the time 
become wrinkled and thin and yellow. 
All sweetness vanishes from their coun- 
tenance and their disposition. The 
things they so greatly fear generally 
come upon them for the imagination be- 
comes externalized whether it be true 
or false. They are a damper on the 
exuberant spirits of their children and 
they frequently make both husband and 
children fear to invite their friends to 
their home lest her worrying and anxi- 
ety will make their guests feel uncom- 
fortable. A worrying disposition is a 
great desecrater of a home. 

Worry comes from fear. And fear 
is the result of a belief that things, peo- 



9b SERMONETTES FROM 

pie and circumstances have power over 
us. Fear reduced to its ultimate is a 
belief in a punishing power. 

As God is the uncreate and first great 
Cause of all that is, our joys and sor- 
rows directly or indirectly depend upon 
our correct or incorrect beliefs about 
God. Where knowledge is there is no 
fear. With all our getting let us 
strive, most of all, to get knowledge — 
understanding of God, for on this de- 
pends so many of the issues in our ex- 
istence. 

This old woman of Surrey is a type 
of many women, old and young, the 
world over whose worriment all comes 
from lack of understanding of Truth. 
Because of this lack of understanding 
on their part we who know Truth must 
be very patient with them until we lead 



MOTHER GOOSE. 97 

them into knowledge. A lack of com- 
passion on our' part would prove that 
we too still needed to seek for more 
knowledge of God. 

The true knowledge of our being is a 
Science pure and exact. It is capable 
of being applied every moment of our 
lives. Furthermore it is only to those 
who do seek to know, and apply it that 
immunity from sin, sickness, sorrow 
and fear of death is promised. There 
are many men who are given to worri- 
ment and anxiety but my text is talking 
about a woman, so while I stick to my 
text in the letter I am meaning man 
as much as woman every time I say 
"woman." 

Erroneous teaching in the past has 
been the cause of many unhappy homes, 
many wayward children and much bick- 



98 SERMONETTES FROM- 

ering between husband and wife. Be- 
cause of her education to accept what 
has been taught as Truth and her own 
under-estimation of herself as an indi- 
vidual > she became predisposed to men- 
tal inertia and instead of reasoning out 
the whys and wherefores of her condi- 
tion she accepted all the trials and trib- 
ulations that came to her as something 
to be endured, either patiently or impa- 
tiently, or else to be overcome by some 
power or person outside of herself. As 
she did not know that "There's nothing 
either good or bad but thinking makes 
it so" neither did she know that she 
could learn to control her thinking — 
hence have only good come to her. We 
know to-day that ignorance is "origin- 
al sin" for as soon as we become wide 
enough awake to know the truth of our 



MOTHER GOOSE. 99 

being we see that as we sow thus will 
we reap. As we want to re^ap only 
good fruit we will sow only good seed . 
When people worry they are so ab- 
sorbed in what they think is going to 
happen that they become forgetful of 
other people and say and do very un- 
gracious and unkind things. When 
one is intent upon one thing that is the 
thing that receives all the thought and 
all the attention. Any thing else is at- 
tended to only half consciously. 
• The worry which our old woman en- 
tertained colored every thing else she 
looked at, so she saw husband and chil- 
dren in an untrue light and said and 
did that which she will wish she had 
left unsaid and undone as soon as she 
takes her eyes off her worry long 
enough to perceive what she has done. 



100 SERMONETTES FROM 

The people who are always in a hur- 
ry have no realization of the meaning 
of the words "peace" and "faith." On- 
ly a certain amount of work can be ac- 
complished in a given time. If one is 
executive, methodical and neat she can 
do much more than if these qualities 
are lacking in her. Confusion both in- 
ternal and external, precipitation and 
irregular activity, which are contrary 
to divine Law, all come of hurry. One 
who is given to hurry does not possess 
self-mastery. 

Perhaps the hour for rising has ar- 
rived. You know that to accomplish 
what you have to do you should arise 
immediately and with calm and steady 
purpose proceed to do the duties that 
lie before you for the day. But "no," 
you say, "I will lie a little while longer 



MOTHER GOOSE. 101 

and then will hurry to make up for it." 
Thus do you sell your birthright of 
peace, power, strength and goodwill for 
a little nap of, perhaps, fifteen minutes. 
If you begin a day wrong, things are 
apt to go wrong .for you all day long. 
With your hurry comes worry because 
things are not being accomplished as 
they should and then comes condemna- 
tion and impatience for people outside 
of yourself, and before you know it you 
have called your husband a fool and 
driven your dear little children off to 
school with unhappy little hearts sore 
with injustice. All this could have 
been avoided if that fifteen minutes had 
not been wasted in bed. "But," per- 
haps you say, "I was tired. I need a 
great deal of sleep. I was wakeful 
during the night," etc., etc. Yes, I do 



102 SERMONETTES FROM 

not doubt any of it. But do you know 
that if you would truly seek for a know- 
ledge of God that all these physical 
conditions would pass away and in their 
stead would come peace and calmness 
that nothing could disturb, power to do 
all things well and health of body and 
strength of purpose that does not fear 
any thing that you may be called upon 
to do? Knowledge of God makes us 
love to be harmoniously active. To be 
always in a hurry is an abnormal state. 
Man is the expression of Divine Prin- 
ciple. Principle works by law. We 
hasten its course through cooperation. 
In the fulness of time its ends are 
accomplished. If man realized that 
he is the expression of Divine Principle 
he would always be in a peaceful state 
of steady, harmonious activity. We 



MOTHER GOOSE. 103 

can bring ourselves into this state by 
constantly dwelling upon Divine Prin- 
ciple; recalling, unceasingly, that all 
that God is, is expressed in us and will 
be manifested through us. 

Courage, fortitude, faith, peace, 
strength and power can all be demon- 
strated through Divine Patience. Di- 
vine Patience is the offspring of Divine 
Love and Wisdom. Divine Love can 
be cultivated in the soul. Wisdom is 
attained through the development of 
the soul. With the growth of these 
two virtues comes the patience which 
sees and knows that in each soul there 
will be an awakening from the dream in 
which sin, wickedness and all worldly 
errors have figured as pleasures, neces- 
sities and good. 

At Sometime during the process of 



104 SERMONETTES FROM 

development we were all this old wo- 
man of Surrey, but thanks be unto God 
which will cause us to triumph in 
Christ we are all being led to put off 
the old woman and put on the "new" 
which after God is created in right- 
eousness and true holiness. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 105 



CHAPTER VI. 

" Three wise men of Gotham 
Went to sea in a bowl; 
If the bowl had been stronger, 
My song had been longer." 

"Gotham is a parish in Nottingham- 
shire, England. It has long been cele- 
brated for the remarkable stupidity im- 
puted to the inhabitants. They are 
said to have heard the cuckoo once upon 
a time, and on discovering that the 
notes — which were new and strange to 
them — came from a certain bush, pro- 
ceeded to hedge it in, in order to pre- 
vent the bird from making her escape t 



106 SERMONETTES FROM 

A bush is still shown on an eminence 
about a mile south of the village which 
is called the 'Cuckoo bush.' It is not 
the original one, but is said to be plant- 
ed on the site of that." — Notes on 
Mother Goose. 

When we remember that u the wis- 
dom of this world is foolishness with 
God," we are almost led to believe that 
a large proportion of the people of this 
w r orld are to be likened to these three 
men of Gotham, for while they would 
make sport of any who would follow 
the example of these men and go to sea 
in unseaworthy vessels, yet they are 
constantly doing, and have been doing 
from time immemorial, just as stupid 
and foolish things as did thevSe three 
men. 

Instead of following the injunctions 



MOTHER GOOSE. 107 

of the truly wise they do the things 
that their sense judgments dictate 
when it has been proven time and time 
again that they are unreliable and con- 
tain no life, neither healing balm within 
them. 

Instead of practicing the brother- 
hood of man, as our great teachers have 
always admonished, and from the doing 
of which heaven's choicest blessings 
would come, inhumanity, to man has 
been the thing practiced. 

Instead of loving mercy, doing justly 
and walking humbly before God, unjust 
and unmerciful has been man's treat- 
ment of man, and rebellion and pride 
has been his attitude toward the God 
of his imagination. 

Mother Goose did not seem to feel 
that she could say much about her three 



108 SERMONETTES FROM 

"wise" (?) men, because they were so 
quickly swamped as the effect of their 
own foolishness of putting out to sea in 
a bowl, which was never intended, and 
was entirely unsuitable, for any such 
purpose. Is it any wonder that they 
sank from view and that they are 
known no more forever? How much 
wiser are many of the men of this so- 
called enlightened nineteenth century? 
How much more sensibly do they really 
use their God given powers, capacities 
and faculties than did these men of 
Gotham? 

The fact is that as a race we have 
not yet become enlightened, hence do 
the foolish things which we do because 
of our ignorance. To know a thing is 
to clearly and certainly perceive, appre- 
hend and understand that it is, what it 



MOTHER GOOSE. 109 

is, and why it is. Because there are so 
few things that the race really knows, 
it is obvious that it does many ignorant 
and foolish things. "With all thy get- 
ting get understanding" is an admoni- 
tion that includes all wise and righteous 
counsel. 

It was because of ignorance that 
these men of Gotham put to sea in a 
bowl, yet they generically had the wis- 
dom of God. It is one thing to possess 
a thing, but quite another to know or 
be conscious that you possess it. 

Man, the created of God — the univer- 
sal Man — is the exact image of God. 
Ideals can be made manifest and until 
they are, they are not the real and are 
of no practical benefit to ourselves or 
others. For example, take the sewing 
machine. The idea of the sewing ma- 



110 SERMONETTES FROM 

chine that Elias Howe held was an im- 
age of his thinking. For him to make 
this idea, or image, manifest, it w r as 
necessary to use a material object or 
formation which we call a sewing ma- 
chine, but which is only a representa- 
tive of the idea or mental image. The 
idea, the image is forever invisible, but 
millions of representative sewing ma- 
chines can be made, every one of which, 
properly used, will carry out Mr. 
Howe's idea. 

None of the material objects we see 
is real in itself. The real thing is the 
mental image. The object which we 
see with the sense-sight represents the 
mental image. The thoughts are the 
things. What we call things are the 
pictures of the thoughts. The wise of 
this world have, in their dimness of 



MOTHER GOOSE. HI 

spiritual perception, believed matter 
and material things to be eternal reali- 
ties. But a student of the Science of 
Mind discovers that matter has no real- 
ity at all, consequently has no life, sub- 
stance, intelligence, sensation, causa- 
tion or solidity, but that all reality is 
mind. 

Things are to us just as we imagine 
them to be. Imagination is the outpic- 
turing power. Whatever we imagine 
we will see objectified soon or late, ac- 
cording to the tenacity with which we 
hold the image in our mentality. This 
is why different people see the same 
person or object in such different lights. 
Take, for instance, a public worker. 
You might consider him one of the best 
of the earth; you might perceive in him 
a willingness to sacrifice everything for 



112 SERMONETTES FROM 

the weal of man. You might see his 
every speech and every action to be 
based upon the principle of righteous- 
ness, and see in him a divine courage 
that makes him brave enough to dare 
any thing that is right. To you he 
would be an ideal character, worthy of 
every man's emulation. 

Your neighbor might put an entirely 
different construction upon every thing 
that he did. He might denounce him 
as a hypocrite, with private ends to be 
attained in every thing which he does, 
and declare that his boldness and effron- 
tery make him able to push himself in- 
to notoriety. We know that just such 
contrary views are held and stated re- 
garding different persons, and that ev- 
ery one is to us just as we see him. 
When we have attained purity of heart 



MOTHER GOOSE. 113 

we will see every one as he truly is. It 
is they who have clean hands and a 
pure heart who will ascend into the hill 
of the Lord. 

Imagination can produce either the 
false or the true. Its work becomes 
objectified to us in either case. In the 
process of soul development, conscious- 
ness of our intelligence increases. The 
greater the soul intelligence the purer 
and truer the work of the imagination. 
The largeness of the soul is according 
to the realization of its knowledge of 
things. A narrow, contracted, shriv- 
eled soul has no perception or realiza- 
tion of the beauty of holiness or the 
truth of man's being as the image of 
God. A little soul does not conceive of 
anything greater than itself, or anyone 
capable of doing nobler or grander 



114 SERMONETTES FROM 

things than it does. Itself is the limit 
which it imposes upon all. 

The wise men of Gotham found a 
bowl big enough for all three to get in- 
to, and because they were in it did not 
realize that there was anything greater 
than it which had to be coped with. 
We will also have to enlarge our con- 
sciousness as to the truths of the uni- 
verse or be swamped in our little bowls 
of beliefs from whence, soon or late, 
through desire and aspiration we will 
be resurrected. To increase in under- 
standing now, is the wiser way. It is 
not God-purpose that we shall be ex- 
tinguished, but that we shall increase 
more and more unto the perfect day. 
God-purpose will be carried out. Coop- 
eration on our part will make us con- 
scious of the divine harmony that is in 



MOTHER GOOSE. 115 

the heart of the universe. We can thus 
find rest unto our souls. 

In dreams things seem very real to 
us. Wlien we awake we quickly say, 
"It was only a dream!" and soon all re- 
membrance of it passes away. When 
we, through spiritual perception, see 
the truth regarding ourselves, we find 
that we are beginning to awake from 
the sleep of ignorance in which we have 
been so long with its horrible dreams 
of sickness, misery, sin and poverty. In 
our dream the wisdom of this world has 
seemed the ultimate of attainment for 
us, but as we awake we discover it to be 
foolishness, indeed. The god of this 
world has been money, to gain which 
mankind has sacrificed honor, health, 
peace and life. To know the true God 
is to possess wisdom indeed, and also 



116 SERMONETTES FROM 

have all the things of this world add- 
ed. 

The love of money is the root of all 
evil. Money itself is useful. It is the 
world's symbol for Good. By the way 
we use it we prove to ourselves how 
much understanding we have of the 
principle Good, which, when appropria- 
ted in our hearts, is so redolent of good 
in our lives. When one ceases to be 
honest because it is the best policy and 
becomes honest from a love of right- 
eousness then and not till then is he 
truly honest. The thing that is done 
is of little consequence compared with 
the motive which prompts the action. 
To do a dishonest or unjust thing for 
the sake of material gain is to bind one's 
self with shackles which will be very 
burdensome and hard to carry. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 117 

The truly righteous are never forsak- 
en. All things that they need are add- 
ed to them day by day. Money in it- 
self can give no pleasure, no peace, no 
health, no knowledge. It is only 
through the use of money that any 
good can be purchased for us. The 
use or abuse of money is one of the 
strongest tests of character. 

The "three wise men of Gotham" did 
not show good judgment in putting off 
to sea in a bowl. Neither do we show 
good judgment when we do anything 
whatsoever for merely temporal gain. 
Surface and superficial reasoning is one 
of the weak points which belong to ig- 
norance. The truth concerning any ef- 
fect can not be known until its why and 
wherefore have been discovered. 

I heard of an old Irish Catholic wo- 



118 SERMONETTES FROM 

man who had gone to church to pray. 
She paused before the statue of the 
Madonna and child, and soliloquized 
thus: "Shure, Mary, an' there you sit 
with little Jasus in your arms. A foine 
choild he was, shure. Whin he grew 
up they crucified him. Too bod, Mary, 
too bod. I had a little b'y of me own 
once, Mary, an' his name w r as Dinnis, 
an' whin he grew up they hung him. 
Och! Mary, it's afther havin' throuble 
with our b'ys that we are!" 

To her birth meant birth, and execu- 
tion meant execution. Motives and 
causes were to her unknown. Aspira- 
tion and carnality were one and the 
same to her. 

We say that it was poor judgment 
for our three men to go to sea in a 
bowl when their pleasure, of necessity, 



MOTHER GOOSE. 119 

could only be temporary and its result 
disastrous. It is as surely poor judg- 
ment for mankind to seek temporal 
good only; for if they were to seek the 
higher and eternal good they would not 
only have the temporal things "added," 
but would be relieved of the cares and 
anxieties and fears which are now such 
cankers in their souls. When we seek 
eternal good we know that there is 
plenty for every one. It is only they 
who believe in temporal good who 
think one can defraud another. It is 
only they who seek eternal good who 
can be confident of health secure; and 
who will have no fear of death. They 
who seek eternal good become wise with 
God-wisdom, and strong with God- 
strength. Sound judgment becomes 



120 SERMONETTES FROM 

developed in the one who seeks that 
which is eternally good. 

Poor judgment, ignorance and fool- 
ishness are not man's birthright nor in- 
herent in his divine nature. Sound 
judgment, knowledge and wisdom is 
his inheritance from God. The wis- 
dom of this world must stand aside for 
the wisdom that is God-derived. Man 
comes into conscious realization of the* 
wisdom that is really his through rec- 
ognition of it and through the daily use 
of it in all the affairs of life. 

We must evolve from such foolish- 
ness as that displayed by the "wise men 
of Gotham" into that shown through 
the "three wise men of the East" who 
followed faithfully the star which they 
discerned would bring them to where 
they would find the Christ. The star 



MOTHER GOOSE. 121 

which will guide us unerringly is the 
perception that we are each one the im- 
age of God. 

As we have faith in God so must we 
have faith in the image of God, our 
own true self. / have faith in myself 
because I am the image of God, is the 
chariot in which we can ride until we 
have attained realization of God-wis- 
dom, God-understanding and God-love. 
The gold, and frankincense, and myrrh 
which will be our rich gifts to the 
young child we perceive quietly lying 
in the midst of our soul consciousness, 
ready to be awakened and come forth 
to manifestation as soon as the animal 
instincts have been turned out of our 
hearts and desires, are the pure 
thoughts, the true words and the kind 
deeds which we will faithfully, loving- 



122 SERMONETTES FROM 

ly, hopefully, patiently and courageous- 
ly do at all times and in all seasons. 

We must have faith in ourselves that 
we can do the things which we ought 
to do. God-power is expressed in us 
and we are the users of it to the extent 
that we lay hold of it. 

There is no limit to our possibilities. 
Faith in ourselves because we are the 
creation of God is the highest compli- 
ment we can pay our Creator. To 
have faith in ourselves proves we per- 
ceive that u God saw all that he had 
made and behold it was very good." If 
God did good work in us we can prove 
it by making it manifest. As soon as 
we begin to trust ourselves we find our- 
selves trying "to rise to the level of the 
occasion." The more closely we hold 
the ideal of our God image before our 



MOTHER GOOSE. 123 

soul eyes, the more quickly will we 
reach it in our realization. If we love 
God w^e must love the image of God. 
To do this is to have unceasing aspira- 
tion to make all God qualities manifest 
in the world, which, when attained, will 
bless the world and heal it and teach 
it. 

It is very noticeable that the people 
at large are becoming teachable in 
things spiritual. It must be due to the 
fact that they are entirely capable of 
becoming all they admire and wish they 
could become. Unless man could be- 
come God-like he would not be so sus- 
ceptible to the beauties of a God-like 
character. 

The wisdom such as was displayed 
by the men of Gotham is by process of 
divine law being changed to the wis- 



124 SERMONETTES FROM 

dom of Christ. The ignorant and 
foolish things which we, as a race, have 
always done, will soon come to an end 
because of their failure to bring us into 
the haven of peace and satisfaction. It 
is Truth which brings satisfaction. It 
is through a knowledge of Truth that 
our divine Self will be made manifest. 

Mary E. Burt in her entrancingly 
beautiful book, "Browning's Women," 
says: "There are two virtues which 
Browning exalts above all others in wo- 
man, courage and breadth of vision." 
We recognize that man is a dual crea- 
ture, and that he is by nature both 
male and female. "Let us make man," 
shows plurality in God. If there is 
plurality in God there is also plurality 
in the image of God, or where is the 
likeness? Man is, therefore, as a spir- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 125 

itttal being, both male and female. Wo- 
man is also both female and male. We 
admire a gentle-man. We respect a 
brave, courageous woman. 

Until we become developed past and 
beyond the stage in understanding of 
the "three wise men of Gotham" we 
have neither "courage" nor "breadth of 
vision." The "wise men of Gotham" 
were not courageous when they put out 
to sea in a bowl; they were stupid. 
Courage sees danger but with all the 
wisdom it can command sets out to 
grapple with it fearlessly and heroic- 
ally. Stupidity is so dull of compre- 
hension that it does not see any dan- 
gers to be grappled with. "Breadth of 
vision" certainly can not be imputed to 
the "men of Gotham." As a smaller 
nature can not comprehend a larger 



126 SERMONETTES FROM 

one, they did not compare the forces of 
the great sea with their little "bowl." 
The ignorant are compelled to learn 
through experience, but the wise learn 
through revelation. Evil is limitation. 
We are in error while we allow our- 
selves to remain in ignorance of that 
which we should know. Narrowness of 
vision is an evil. Narrowness of vision 
keeps the soul dwarfed. If one con- 
fines his vision, his thinking, his hopes 
and desires in the little circumference 
of material things he is no wiser than 
were the "men of Gotham." 

One day during the World's Fair my 
sister and I were taking a rapid look 
through the Agricultural Building. Up 
in the gallery we observed a multitude 
of people, and not nearly all of them 
were women, either, patiently standing 



MOTHER GOOSE. 127 

in line and gradually moving forward. 
Their progress was so slow that I am 
sure it must have taken forty-five min- 
utes to pass a certain point. We, of 
course, wondered what interesting 
thing was to be seen that so many peo- 
ple were willing to spend so much time 
to see. I thought to expedite matters 
and satisfy my own curiosity, I would 
inquire, so I stepped up to a pleasant 
looking little woman and said: "What 
are all you people waiting to see?" 
"Why," she said, "at that booth up 
there they are giving every body a 
pickle. " At the World's Fair, with 
such a feast for heart, soul and eye as 
our civilization had never before been 
blessed with, and spending forty-five 
minutes to get a pickle! 1 '/ 

Breadth of vision belongs to the im- 



128 SERMONETTES FROM 

• 

age of God, for God is both Omnipres- 
ence and Omniscience. It can be culti- 
vated and must be cultivated. Man's 
destiny is fixed. He must become like 
God, for Divine Law compels the evo- 
lution of all that is involved. Breadth 
of vision increases as soul knowledge is 
attained. We no longer see our home 
as a place where our chief thought is to 
keep the rugs straight, the furniture 
well dusted, and so much money put 
away in the bank every month; but it 
is a place where divinity dwells and 
where divinity is made manifest. We 
are no longer careful and troubled about 
many things, but we love our work 
and we love to demonstrate that "or- 
der is heaven's first law." Home is 
the sacred place where the Holy Spir- 
it abides, and its influence over us is 



MOTHER GOOSE 129 

teaching us to put off the wisdom of 
the men of Gotham and put on that 
of the sons of God- 



130 SERMONETTES FROM 



CHAPTER VII. 

" Little Tommy Grace, 
Had a pain in his face, 
So bad that he could not learn a letter; 
When in came Dicky Long, 
Singing such a funny song, 
That Tommy laughed, and found his face 
much better." 

Self-preservation is said to be the 
first law of nature, and self-preserva- 
tion is the attempt to keep away from 
oneself all injury of every sort. This 
is generally understood to be regarding 
physical injury, but we have now come 
to know that the real self is not the 
physical self, but that the real self is 



MOTHER GOOSE. 131 

the divine ego, or the image of God, 
and that it is the consciousness of this 
Self that we are to preserve in our real- 
ization, or in our constant thinking, if 
we would have immunity from physical 
ill. 

If this Self were always kept before 
our soul vision, and remembrance of 
what it is held constantly in thought, we 
would never know sadness, poverty, dis- 
ease, nor death, but we would sing with 
David, 

" In thy presence is fulness of joy." 
When David was conscious of his over- 
shadowing Self — his Lord — he experi- 
enced great joy, and was very cheerful; 
but when he got his moping spells he 
was like all the rest of us are some- 
times when we forget our birthright — 
cross and fretful and selfish. 



132 SERMONETTES FROM 

Divine Law which is steadfast, om- 
nipotent, immovable, and irrevocable, 
says we must, every one of us, come in- 
to conscious unity with God. We must 
know this omnipresent Principle and 
see it face to face. We can fight 
against it if we will, and thus gain our 
knowledge through hard experience; or 
we can cooperate with it and find the 
yoke easy and the burden light. We 
can choose which we will serve. Our 
choice, yours and mine, is for coopera- 
tion, and we find that to cultivate the 
habit of cheerfulness is one of our 
greatest aids. 

"Cheerfulness is the very best tonic 
one can take." 

Many a doctor of materia medica 
holds and increases the size of his prac- 
tice by just simply being cheerful. The 



MOTHER GOOSE, 133 

cheerfulness that he brings into a sick- 
room is what cures his patient. It is 
not the medicine that does it. Many 
people who take much medicine remain 
sick for years, while no one can possi- 
bly remain sick if he will persistently 
cultivate cheerfulness. 

To cheer is to cause to rejoice, and 
to be full of cheer or cheerful is to be 
full of rejoicing or to rejoice fully. 

Now, you say, one can not be full of 
rejoicing or full of cheer unless there is 
something to be cheerful about. 

No, he can not ; that is a fact. But 
has not every one something to be 
cheerful about? and does not dejection 
come because we do not perceive the 
things that we have to be cheerful 
about? 

What have we to be cheerful about? 



134 SERMOXETTE3 FROM 

Well, there is one thing which, if we 
understood, we would not, because we 
could not, be otherwise than cheerful 
every moment. 

And what is that one thing? 

The truth of our Being. 

The fact that man is, in his real be- 
ing, the exact and true expression of 
God, is enough to sustain us every mo- 
ment, for this means that God's image 
is as eternal as God is eternal, as in- 
telligent as God is Intelligence, as om- 
nipotent as God is Omnipotence, and as 
omnipresent as God is Omnipresence.- 
This is as true as God is Truth. If we 
perceived and realized all this to be 
true we would never be despondent, 
would we? 

Then the cure for despondency and 



MOTHER GOOSE. 135 

the prescription that will bring cheer- 
fulness is to get acquainted with our 
real Selves, is it not? 

Do you ask, If all this is true of us in 
reality, why are we ignorant of it ? 

We are not really ignorant of it; 
what seems to be ignorance is that we 
are simply asleep to the truth of.it, but 
will awaken and gain our proof to our 
self-consciousness, so that we shall 
know that we are what we are. 

It is only our sense about things that 
makes them seem true to us. 

I heard once of an old soldier who 
was living at the expense of the state 
in an institution which had been pro- 
vided for disabled and indigent soldiers. 
He was one day sweeping a path when 
a messenger came and informed him 



136 SERMONETTES FROM 

that he had been made heir to a num- 
ber of thousands of dollars. 

Now he was heir to this money when 
he began to sweep the path, but he had 
no knowledge of it, and his sense about 
himself was that he was a pauper; 
therefore the only change that this 
message made in him was a change in 
his sense knowledge of himself. He 
was the heir just as much before he 
was conscious of the fact as after. It 
was proven to him only when he became 
conscious of it. 

We are, in our real being, at this 
present moment, the exact image of 
God, We will only be conscious of the 
truth of our being when it is proven to 
us. The only way we can prove it is 
to identify ourselves with it and then 
live it, and so prove to our own con- 



MOTHER GOOSE. 137 

sciousness that we are Godlike. To 
learn to know the doctrine of Truth we 
must do the will of Truth. The learn- 
ing and the proving are in the doing. 

What we are is fixed and changeless 
because we are eternally the effect of 
our Cause, which is changeless Princi- 
ple. Our God is Principle, which is un- 
changeably Good and can never be 
moved. 

We have qpt the God of the little 
girl who, when she prayed to have her- 
self and all her relations cared for dur- 
ing the night, said, "And, dear God, do 
try to take good care of yourself, for if 
anything should happen to you we 
would go all to pieces. " 

Because our Cause — that which sur- 
rounds us, sustains us, upholds us and 
overshadows us — is eternally and 



138 SERMONETTES FROM 

changelessly Good, we have forever 
cause to be happy and cheerful, and we 
have no cause to be other than happy 
and cheerful always. We often think 
we have reason to be other than cheer- 
ful, but this is when we judge accord- 
ing to appearances instead of according 
to righteous judgment. 

But even granting appearances as 
facts, which they are to us until we 
have outgrown them through know- 
ledge, do we gain anything when we 
descend from cheerfulness into despon- 
dency and anxiety? Even under the 
most trying times, when perhaps what 
looks like disaster or affliction threat- 
ens us, what good comes of desponden- 
cy or fear? Is any trouble ever avert- 
ed by anxiety regarding it? 



MOTHER GOOSE. 139 

Is any character ever strengthened 
by despondency? 

Is any illness ever overcome by fear? 

In "The Greatest Thing in the 
World" Henry Drummond, under the 
name of "111 Temper," gives a very 
pointed lesson to the people who show 
a lack of cheerfulness. He calls it "the 
vice of the virtuous," and indeed there 
is far more religion, far more grace and 
love in one soul that resolutely sets 
about being cheerful from day to day, 
under all circumstances, in the face of 
all appearances, from principle, than 
there is in forty ordinary Christians 
who wear long faces and preach the 
beauty of affliction. 

There never was in all history a 
greater hero than the one who honestly 
and patiently and conscientiously tries 



140 SERMONETTES FROM 

to be cheerful when all appearances 
indicate that there is nothing to be 
cheerful about. 

We are sure that but comparatively 
few people have yet awakened to see 
that the cultivation of cheerfulness is a 
vital necessity. 

Cheerfulness is in itself a magnet 
which will draw to the soul which prac- 
tices it all good, both of internal real- 
ization and outward demonstration. It 
is a necessary soul quality which makes 
every other constituent or element of 
the soul stronger and richer and more 
powerful. 

Cheerfulness under opposing circum- 
stances will give the soul a greater lift 
than will any other one virtue. It is a 
character strengthener of the first wa- 
ter. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 141 

As cheerfulness is cultivated and in- 
creases, faith is strengthened, hope is 
fostered, love is developed and good will 
is absolute, while fear dissolves, despon- 
dency dies, selfishness melts away, and 
anxiety is laughed into oblivion. 

Cheerfulness breeds hospitality and 
generosity. 

It makes "The Golden Rule" easy of 
accomplishment. 

It lightens labor and burdens of every 
sort. 

There are ethical reasons why we 
should cultivate cheerfulness. There 
are therapeutic reasons why it should 
be cultivated and there is a divine rea- 
son why we should persistently, patient- 
ly, lovingly and heroically cultivate it. 

All who have spiritual aspirations 



142 SERMONETTES FROM 

are intuitively impelled to strive for 
cheerfulness. 

The so-called chronic invalids would 
be restored to health surely and per- 
haps speedily if they would go into the 
"cheering up business." 

Cheerfulness is catching. One merry 
heart can furnish the infection for a 
whole family. 

Cheerfulness tends toward honesty in 
affairs and righteousness in thought, 
word and deed. 

Cheerfulness is a Christian grace of 
vast magnitude. "God loveth a cheer- 
ful giver," says Paul. 

An Eastern proverb says "Food with- 
out hospitality is a medicine." The 
deeds that we do will carry with them 
slight blessing unless we do them in 
cheerfulness. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 143 

The words that we speak will lack 
healing quality or soothing power un- 
less they are spoken from a loving, 
cheerful heart. 

When I speak of cheerfulness I do not 
mean hilarity, levity, or mirth, but that 
calm, steady, peaceful, unchanging, con- 
tented quality at which condition the 
soul has arrived from either an intu- 
itive perception, or else an absolute 
knowledge that all that really is, is 
good. 

When things that appear to us to be 
evil are understood to be what they real- 
ly are — of no reality — then they will no 
longer hold any power over us. They 
will no longer frighten us nor cause us 
to be anxious. 

Because of the fixedness of Divine 
L^aw there is no escaping its conse- 



144 SERMONETTES FROM 



quences. God-purpose is that each and 
every one shall become conscious of the 
truth of his being. There is no escap- 
ing, evading, or disobeying this purpose 
in the ultimate, for Law is unchanging 
and irrevocable. We can coooperate 
with this Law and in cheerfulness and 
content consciously know that day by 
day we are growing in realization of 
our unity with God; or we can load 
ourselves down with fears, cares and 
anxiety till, to our sense-consciousness, 
our lot is a sorrowful one and our cup 
bitter and hard to drink. 

Madame de Stael said: "Search for 
the Truth is the noblest occupation of 
man. Its publication is a duty." 

There are many noble souls to-day 
for there are many in search of Truth. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 145 

The search for Truth is becoming 
the one great and important and all-ab- 
sorbing theme. Some say it is the 
search for bread that men are engaged 
in, but we who know that bread comes 
to him who is in search of Truth know 
that all are seeking Truth even when 
they do not know what it is they are in 
search of. 

Let us who know the Truth publish 
it with such cheerful hearts and counte- 
nances that we will be a proof to all the 
world that when a candle is lighted it 
can not be hid, but gives light to all 
who are in the house. 

"The field is the world, and too many 
can not scatter the seed nor garner the 
harvest." Let us each speak that 
which we know, and as we speak more 
and more will be given to us. 



146 SERMONETTES FROM 

In patience let us possess our souls, 
knowing that all things are ours now, 
and that they will be ours to our con- 
sciousness just as soon as we have lived 
the life well enough to have proved the 
doctrine. 

To preach successfully the gospel of 
cheerfulness is to live a dignified, noble, 
happy, peaceful, godly life. 

Its consequences will be knowledge 
of Truth, healing power, souls gained, 
daily supply, and ever and ever increas- 
ing love in the heart. 

When we fast from yielding to sor- 
row, sickness, fear and anxiety, let us 
anoint our heads and wash our faces 
that we may appear not unto men to 
fast, but unto our Father which is in 
secret. Our Father which seeth in se- 
cret shall reward us openly. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 147 

A cheerful individual has a most as- 
tonishing influence in a sick-room, espe- 
cially with little children. They are so 
susceptible to the thoughts and feelings 
of those around them that they will be- 
lieve they are sick or well just as one 
thinks of them. One reason of the 
great mortality among children is that 
their elders, who are always so fright- 
ened about them, influence the little ' 
ones to be afraid also. 

I remember once visiting a friend 
whose remarkably strong and happy 
child was taken suddenly ill. In her 
sympathy for the child and her anxiety 
regarding him, she seemed to feel that 
pity for him and for herself was what 
would soothe them both. She would 
bend over him for several minutes at a 
time, saying: "Poor baby is so sick! 



148 SERMONETTES FROM 

Poor baby is so sick!" The dear little 
fellow would put up his pale lip in the 
most injured way, with a despairing 
little wail that went to one's heart. 
The doctor said he could not under- 
stand why a child with such an iron 
constitution as this baby always seemed 
to have, could not be made to rally; and 
when, after several days of this kind of 
treatment, the baby died the doctor 
said he had never been so disappointed 
in all his life. 

Now, if "Little Tommy Grace" had 
been pitied according to the way of 
anxious mothers, he would have been a 
very sick child, no doubt, and poultices 
and plasters would have occupied the 
attention of the combined family 
through the wee, small hours of the 
night; but, instead, cheerful little Dicky 



MOTHER GOOSE. 149 

Long came in singing such a funny song 
that, presto! our little Tommy laughed 
and found his face much better. It is 
cheerful sympathy that should be given 
to children. Doleful sympathy aggra- 
vates their condition every time. 

Our dear husbands and brothers and 
fathers who usually think they are at 
death's door if a little fever accompa- 
nies their cold, or if a slight headache 
remains over thirty minutes, should 
never be given doleful sympathy. 
Courageous, cheerful sympathy must 
be a characteristic of those who en- 
deavor to woo them back into the 
realization that they are strong and 
well. 

Divine cheerfulness will be charac- 
teristic with us only when we have 
really learned the truth of our Being. 



150 SERMONETTES FROM 



CHAPTER VIII. 

"A man of words and not of deeds 
Is like a garden full of weeds; 
For when the weeds begin to grow, 
Then doth the garden oveflow." 

A little boy whose father had pray- 
ed that the Lord would supply a cer- 
tain poor family in his community with 
bread said: "If I had as much wheat 
in a barn as you've got, papa, I'd an- 
swer that prayer myself." 

Of what use is Christianity unless it 
is made practical? It was because 
Jesus did things that we have faith in 
him. He was mighty in both word and 



MOTHER GOOSE. 151 

deed. Theory without works is vain. 

Abstract Truth becomes valuable to 
us only as we make it the concrete. 

It is only they who are ignorant of 
divine law that would dare speak words 
they do not mean. "A man of words 
and not of deeds" is evidently one who 
does not have the motive and intent 
to measure up in his doing to the words 

which he speaks. This man is piling 
up for himself burdens that will be 
grievous and heavy to be borne. "Every 
idle word that men shall speak, they 
shall give account thereof in the day of 
judgment." "For by thy words thou 
shalt be justified, and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned." When the motive 
is pure one does not feel tempted to 
speak idle words. Purity of motive is 
a shield that will protect u's from harm. 



152 SERXOXETTES FROM 

It will also guide us into the paths of 
righteousness. 

When mankind awakes to know that 
every word is a living thing which is 
sent into the universal as the archer 
sends his arrow, and that it is sure to 
hit somewhere, they will be more care- 
ful what words they speak. Our ar- 
rows are either tipped with poison or 
blessing. They either hurt or cure. 
Since like attracts like just the same 
arrow-tipped words that we send out 
will come back to us. Deceitful and 
hypocritical people are greatly to be 
pitied, because they do not know that 
they are making sickness and sorrow 
and disaster which will become actual 
experiences to them. 

A thought is a silent word. It is just 
as powerful as an audible word. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 153 

When people think one thing and 
speak its opposite they are making op- 
posite conditions for themselves. They 
are sowing tares with their wheat, mix- 
ing germs of sickness with those of 
health, germs of misery with those of 
joy. Unmixed good can only come to 
him who thinks and speaks and feels 
what is really true. There is nothing 
that will give us a more helpful and 
speedy lift into understanding and real- 
ization of Truth than to act or do just 
the very thing that we see we ought to 
do from the standpoint of divine Prin- 
ciple. 

To see that we ought to do a thing 
and then not do it is to weaken our char- 
acter and keep away from ourselves 
realization of Truth. "Good thoughts 
are no better than good dreams unless 



154 SERMONETTES FROM 

they are put into execution." There 
are many people who ask very earnest- 
ly to know the Truth, but do not put 
into practice what little they do per- 
ceive. Doing becomes a channel for 
more light. The very best way to 
know the doctrine of God is to do the 
will of God. You learn how to do a 
thing through personal experiment. He 
who undertakes to practice the Truth 
religion in his thinking and doing will 
have scientific religion revealed to him. 
"All truly great souls spend themselves 
in selfless service," says Walt Whitman. 
They become great through doing in 
accord with what they perceive they 
ought to do. Our ideas are born of in- 
telligence. We demonstrate our ideas 
by doing that through which they be- 
come manifest. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 155 

A physician said lately in an article 
in a medical journal: "I believe that 
close observation and long experience 
will teach a medical man that the great- 
est universal cause of disease is laziness. 
The next greatest cause is selfishness. 
Following this comes ignorance. Rid 
the world of the three and there will be 
little occupation for the physician. "Laz- 
iness is inactivity, and since it is the 
nature of Mind to be active, one who is 
lazy is not carrying out in deed that 
which his divine intelligence dictates. 
Error always results in sickness soon or 
late. Lazy people often excuse their la- 
ziness because of their torpid liver when 
they should say my laziness is becoming 
objectified in the torpidity of my liver. 
Laziness is lack of divine energy, and is 
apt to lead to blind faith. It is to them 



156 SERMONETTES FROM 

of understanding faith that blessings 
are promised. 

Selfishness is one of the parent sins 
and laziness one of its offspring. Self- 
ishness keeps people from doing what 
they know they should do and it also 
keeps them from seeing what they 
might do for the betterment of others. 

Ignorance allows people to honor 
the Truth with their lips while their 
hearts are of opposite intent. They are 
speaking idle words. Every word 
which we speak and every thought we 
think has its day of judgment. The 
world has seemed to be at sixes and 
sevens, and many people have blamed 
God, for deserting His children, others 
have feared that the power of evil is 
stronger than the power of Good, and 
because of their gloomy forebodings 



MOTHER GOOSE. 157 

have uttered all manner of untrue words 
concerning the Lord their God. 

If they would examine the race speech 
and actions they would find that the 
race has brought all this evil upon it- 
self by its own errors. "The day of 
judgment" is every day and every hour. 
Every experience which we have either 
mental, physical or circumstantial is a 
judgment on our past thoughts, words 
and deeds. When we are reaping sor- 
row, pain and poverty we cast our men- 
tal eye back to the errors which we 
have done and thus "give account" of 
them. Every one is his own judge. 
Self-preservation compels us, after we 
find that the weeds have grown so 
abundantly that our gardefl is entirely 
overflowed with evils on all sides, to 



158 SERMONETTES FROM 

right thinking, to right speaking and 
to right doing. 

It may take us a long while, accord- 
ing to our sense of time, to become con- 
scious of the reality of our real "self" — 
but we must compel ourselves to do at 
all times and in all ways the things 
which belong to that real "self." To 
prove that we are Godlike in nature we 
must do the things that are Godlike in 
quality. 

Right thinking and speaking usher us 
into the kingdom of heaven here and 
now. We do not have to give up any 
work nor neglect anything that belongs 
to us in order to attain spirituality. It 
is possible to be in the highest state of 
realization while doing the most routine 
work. "There is a tradition as to how a 
certain saint gained renown. She was 



MOTHER GOOSE. 159 

frying fish in a convent, and was seized 
with a religious ecstacy, but such was 
her self-control she neither dropped the 
gridiron nor burned the fish." 

We know to-day that meditation on 
great truths, and their realization, does 
not interfere with the smallest nor 
greatest duty of our life; rather do they 
who have their thoughts most firmly 
fastened on the truth of Being find that 
they do better work than they ever did 
before and do it much more easily. 
They find wisdom is constantly being 
added to them. They find themselves 
increase in ingenuity and dispatch. 
They grow stronger and more health- 
ful. They realize a buoyancy that was 
to them in the past, perhaps, a thing 
unknown. 

Wisdom is one of the aspects or con- 



160 SERMONETTES FROM 

stituents of God; activity is another; 
harmony another; beauty another; love 
another. Does it not then follow that 
whosoever keeps his thoughts stayed 
upon God will do his work in the wisest 
and most beautiful way; and that he is 
the one who will demonstrate harmony 
day by day and his life be the light of 
men? 

It is of the greatest importance that 
little children be taught to speak true 
words and act according to them from 
principle. They are not only apt pupils 
when pure Truth is set before them but 
they become, in turn, the best of teach- 
ers. When their reason convinces them 
of a thing, that is what they set out to 
do literally and spiritually. 

I read lately of a little girl who said 
to her Sunday school teacher: "That 



MOTHER GOOSE. 161 

was not true what you told me last 
Sunday." "What was not true?" asked 
the teacher. "Why, you said if we 
would honor our father and mother that 
our days would be long in the land. I 
have honored mine all week and my 
days have not been a bit longer, for I 
have been put to bed at seven o'clock 
every night just the same." We must 
learn to interpret the language of 
Truth before we can teach it. "With 
all thy getting, get understanding," is 
valuable advice. 

Every trial, either great or small, 
that comes to us in our journey of exist- 
ence is the result of our own error 
speaking. How forcible, then, are 
right words! "A man hath joy by the 
answer of his mouth," says Solomon; 
and Jeremiah says: "Every man's word 



162 SERMONETTES FROM 

shall be his burden. " He also savs our 
words are like a hammer that breaketh 
the rock in pieces. Paul admonishes 
to "Hold fast the form of sound words." 
"Pleasant words are as an honey-comb, 
sweet to the soul and health to the 
bones." 

Let us choke out the weeds from our 
garden by the daily doing of good deeds. 
There is nothing that will appeal more 
eloquently to the hearts of mankind 
than to see one who can "clothe high 
thoughts in fitting deeds and lend him- 
self to others' needs." 



MOTHER GOOSE). 163 



CHAPTER IX. 

"I saw a ship a-sailing, 
A-sailing on the sea; 
And O! it was all laden 

With lovely things for thee!" 

Every good thing in heaven above 
and in the earth beneath is for you. 

You are God's own child and heir to 
all that God is. The entire multiplicity 
and variety that belongs to the nature 
of God, is fully expressed in you. All 
of goodness and beauty and truth are 
involved in you and can therefore be 
evolved from you and through you. 



164 SERMONETTES FROM 

You have all possibility for attain- 
ment. You have all capacity for fulfill- 
ment. 

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of 
man, the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him." 

All that love God shall attain con- 
scious Godlikeness. To realize your 
Godlikeness will be joy supreme. 

You are already, in your real being, 
Godlike, for you were created in the 
very image of God. 

You are more Godlike in your heart 
than you yet realize. The beautiful 
things that are waiting for you will all 
come as you realize, little by little, your 
real Self — your God image and like- 
ness. 

Whatever you see in another that 



MOTHER GOOSE. 165 

very thing is within yourself, for like 
sees only like, and knows nothing of 
anything unlike itself. 

Why do you reverence goodness in 
another? Because the very same qual- 
ity is inherent in yourself. 

Why are you a hero worshiper? Be- 
cause you are yourself capable of doing 
the very same things that your hero 
has done. 

Why do kindness and gentleness per- 
fect such healing in your soul? Be- 
cause you, yourself, can learn to be just 
as kind and gentle and merciful as an- 
other. 

Why do you have such respect for 
knowledge? Because the same capaci- 
ty for attaining knowledge belongs to 
you. 



166 SERMONETTES FROM 

Why so enraptured with art? Be- 
cause the same God-given talent is 
yours. 

Why do you so greatly admire Emer- 
son and Shakspear? 'Because you have 
within your soul all the majesty, all the 
poetry and all the grandeur that was 
within their souls. 

Why does the character of the Christ 
hold for you such charm? Because you, 
too, can be a Christ. 

Our God is Justice and Righteous- 
ness and respects no man's person. No 
one is more richly endowed than anoth- 
er; but all have received alike of pow- 
ers, capacities and faculties. 

All have not appropriated their rich 
gifts, hence the mystery, "the sea," that 
seems to lie between them and the at- 
tainment and realization now of their 



MOTHKK GOOSE. 167 

soul's aspiration; but all will awaken, 
soon or late, to the truth of their being. 
Their ship is still a-sailing, and the 
lovely things — the realization of all that 
is good, beautiful and true — are con- 
tained in it. 

Everything that you hope for can be 
realized if you will take it. 

You absolutely have dominion over all 
things if you w x ill learn how to exercise 
it. 

You really can do all things when you 
understand that you can do them. We 
have and can do all of these things now 
according to the degree that our inher- 
ent powers have developed. But no 
matter how much we have misused and 
failed to appreciate our powers in the 
past we can begin now and do hence- 
forth and forever according to the 



168 SERMONJETTES FROM 

highest which we perceive. "It is nev- 
er too late to mend"- and "every day is 
a fresh beginning.'' 

Our existence becomes a joy when we 
perceive that we can learn and do and 
become more and more forever. It is 
the right and the privilege of every one 
to express that which is contained with- 
in him. Every one can bring forth to 
conscious realization all that is generic- 
ally latent within him. This is the re- 
sult of a process. It will be expressed 
because of the law that the subjective 
always becomes pictured forth in the 
objective. The kingdom of heaven 
will come upon earth when "the with- 
out is as perfect as the within." 

The perfection that you perceive, 
hope for and admire will be attained by 
you step by step, degree on degree, 



MOTHER GOOSE. 109 

round upon round. Harmony will come 
into your life as a result of intelligent 
living. You will not be conscious of 
your full intelligence until you learn the 
truth concerning your origin and being, 
and the source from whence you 
sprung. Correct conclusions can only 
be obtained from a correct premise. 
You can not live a perfect life until you 
inform yourself regarding your perfect 
Source and the inherent perfection of 
your nature. 

Because you are you must have a 
cause. Cause and effect are like unto 
each other. Effect can not transcend 
its cause, and as you have aspiration 
for the perfect, your cause must be 
Perfection Itself. Every thing good 
and beautiful and great that you imag- 
ine is the push of Divine Law to make 



170 SERMONETTES FROM 

you consciously realize that effect and 
its cause are co-equal and alike. Al- 
ready Godlike in your true nature you 
are gradually becoming conscious of it. 

This attainment of perfection no one 
can give you. You must win it. 
Browning says: "Friend, what you'd 
get, first earn. Nature demands a full 
return for all it gives. Nature never 
writes 'I promise to pay' into her prom- 
issory notes unless she writes also 'for 
value received.' " 

Our gifts and our blessings are both 
turned out of the same measure. As 
we give, so do we receive. We are the 
cause of our own blessings. Every 
blessing which you receive is the effect 
of one that you have previously given. 
Jesus said: "Seek ye first the kingdom 
of God and all other things shall be 



MOTHER GOOSE. 171 

added to you." He taught that the 
way to seek is to "love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart and all thy soul 
and all thy might and all thy strength, 
and thy neighbor as thyself." Whoev- 
er does this will bring upon his own 
head all the blessings that can be con- 
ceived. Not only these, but all the 
blessings that ever and ever attend in- 
creasing knowledge and power and wis- 
dom. 

Knowledge is power and wisdom is 
better than rubies. He that getteth 
wisdom loveth his own soul. 

If you will dare, you will come near- 
er and nearer to the doing that will be 
perfection. This will take patience. 
It will also take sacrifice. The claims 
of mortal sense must be put down that 
the truth of the spiritual man may be 



172 SERMONETTES FROM 

m 

put on. "He must increase, but I must 
decrease," was the way John put it. 

To be a genius is the right of ev- 
ery man. Huxley says: "Genius, to 
my mind, means innate capacity of any 
kind above the average mental level." 
The average mental level is so low be- 
cause man has not known his possibili- 
ties nor claimed them in his thinking. 
What the world calls a genius is one 
who intuitively recognizes his capabili- 
ty in a certain direction and sets out to 
demonstrate it. Acquaintance with 
the truth of man's being shows us that 
all men are equally endowed. When all 
awake to this truth, what is now called 
genius will be the rule, not the excep- 
tion. 

Splendid are the possibilities of man! 
"There are diversities of gifts," but 



MOTHER GOOSE. 173 

each "gift" is only the effect of that 
which has been previously cultivated. 
Jesus said: "He that reapeth receiveth 
wages." 

The belief that death ends all has 
done much mischief. "There is no 
death, what seems so is transition" are 
true words. There is no cessation in 
the work of the soul. 

Pope says: 

"Yet not to earth's contracted span 
Thy goodness let me bound." 

Life is everlasting. Change of resi- 
dence makes no change in the man. His 
loves, his desires, his hopes and his as- 
pirations are not changed by any out- 
ward conditions nor environment. All 
change is within his soul. As he grows 
in knowledge he changes in conscious- 
ness. 



174 SERMOXETTES FROM 

Increasing knowledge can be yours 
from day to day. He who truly desires 
knowledge of Truth and its accompany- 
ing power cares nothing for the experi- 
ences which he has to contend with and 
outgrow^ on the way. "That which 
was but a path of thorns in the passage 
is changed to a path of gold in the ret- 
rospect" says Holland. 

All Godlike virtues are developed 
from within. They are all there. All 
genius, all greatness, all knowledge are 
within man's being, ready to be evolved 
therefrom. It can all be done through 
thinking. 

Very few people have yet learned 
how to think. The mightiest accom- 
plishment that man can attain is to 
know how to think truly. You will at- 
tain this by perceiving what to think. 



MOTHER GOOSE. 175 

A man can think himself up to God; he 
can also think himself down to hell. 
Heaven and hell are within men. Each 
is created by the thinking. All genius 
is only the result of true thinking. 

The omnipresence of Divine Law is 
what compels all men, soon or late, to 
turn to the Light and because of this 
we know that a ship, containing all 
manner of lovely things, is sailing in 
the invisible toward each and every 
child of God. Knowledge is for every 
one, because every one can knock at its 
door and obtain that for which he seeks. 

Knowledge is power, therefore power 
is for every one. The world's inverted 
notion of power is that by it we can 
compel others to be subservient to us, 
and that it gives us the higher and bet- 
ter position in material ways and 



176 SERMONETTES FROM 

places; but this is not what power 
means. The power that is for you — 
that which is now in your ship — is ca- 
pacity and strength to do the right. 
Power is for the uplifting of mankind. 
Power is something to help people 
with. It is what makes you able to 
choose the good and refuse the evil. 

You will strengthen your power by 
use. Every voluntary act that you do, 
or good word that you speak makes a 
little path for the next good deed or 
good word to easily roll out upon. The 
more good deeds you do the more you 
will want to do. The more true words 
you speak the less inclination you will 
have to speak error words. 

Every day that you live deciding for 
the right you are voluntarily strength- 
ening the meshes of Goodness and 



MOTHER GOOSE. 177 

Righteousness and Truth around you, 
so that you will one day realize that 
you are so protected by the Good that 
you can not even strike your foot 
against a stone; and that no harm of 
any kind can befall you. This realiza- 
tion will be worth any price that you 
will pay for it. 

To whatever extent you develop 
yourself in this life, to just that extent 
of knowledge will you begin the next. 
To whatever you aspire and whatever 
you work for in one phase of existence, 
you reap in results in the next phase. 
"Born" musicians, artists, poets, and 
Christs are results of past aspirations. 
Not a single effort that you make is ev- 
er thrown away. Not a single aspira- 
tion nor good deed but will give you a 



178 SERMOXETTES FROM 

lift toward a higher and brighter con- 
sciousness. 

Omnipresence is Life invisible, and 
every thought, word and deed is done 
in the Omnipresence. Growth is there- 
fore its inevitable result. Law can 
not defeat itself, consequently whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap. The more rapid your progress 
in things spiritual the more intense will 
be your desire to press onward toward 
the mark of the high calling. 

Every thing that the soul attains it 
has previously reached for. Other peo- 
ple are influenced by you. What you 
reach for many others will reach for. 
Reach high, my friend, reach up to 
God. u Be ye perfect even as your Fa- 
ther in heaven is perfect. " 



MOTHER GOOSE. 179 

Your ship is sailing toward you. 
You can speed it on its way. It is lad- 
en with all God possibilities, powers 
and capacities in which are included 
love, purity, patience, charity, hope, 
courage, helpfulness, meekness, mercy, 
fortitude and all other fruits of the 
Spirit. These things are for you. 
Take them. 



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